I have been researching units and looking at how low the success rates are, but I know that a lot of that is because of the guys who buy tags but then never spend the time in the woods, or never leave camp etc. I figure the guys that are lurking around here have the passion and the drive to be "above average" even if they are new to a unit.
If this describes you, what tips do you have? How did you narrow down your unit search? How did you narrow down your trail head search? What do you think contributed to your success when the odds are against you?
For me, I have one trip under my belt where I did not tag out, but I learned a ton. However, I am considering a different unit for my 2nd trip, so I feel like in many ways I am starting from scratch. I am searching for some inspiration - and I am sure there are many others that are in the same boat - so please share your stories! The more details the better!
My big advise is-- do not try to find the perfect "honey hole" by continuing to jump around from unit to unit and region to region across the state. If you find elk and the correct habitat that fit you hunting skills and abilities, just stick with it and learn that area like the back of your hand. I believe you will be more successful in the long run. Also from being out of state, you need to have at least 9 days of hunting to give yourself a fair change of success and that is if you hunt until you drop.
my best, Paul
You are the critical element in your success. My first hunt was during a heat wave and the elk totally shut down. Being a turkey hunter proved key when I went in and blind called subplty over a 4 hour period. I do not go camping on a hunt. Camp is merely a place eat and sleep so that I can continue the hunt. Hunt daylight to dark and cat nap on the mountain during periods of inactivity. I have been awakens by a bull bugling at 2:00 in the afternoon and even though I did not shoot the bull because of it's size it could have just as easily been a shooter. My last on everyone? was saying the bulls were not coming to calls which was a surprise since I had called in 8 bulls. I say this as way to inform to not listen to the negatives. Negative emotions, statistics, and people do not promote success. Recently there was a thread posted on the low success of elk hunters. I found it hard to believe that it had a huge following with over a hundred comments. No animal is impossible to kill and frankly in the right situation can be much easier than most would lead you to believe.
Now I am not advocating that it is extremely difficult going OTC in Colorado or Idaho but sometimes we create a monster in our own minds that is hard to overcome. Staying positive is absolutely? critical to your success and even more so when the odds are not your favor. Get in great shape, fatigue makes cowards of all and at a minimum fosters seeds of doubt. When hunting an area of low success focus on enjoying the hunt instead of the kill is even more important.
Have a game plan and execute the plan and be willing to adapt as conditions demand. I am not an expert elk hunter but what I have stated applies all animals and all hunts. Consistent success is a mindset that empowers instead of undermining your outcome.
I would not go on a hunt if I did not think that I would make the shot. Put in the time and practice be mentally ready to close the deal. I have two friends that missed their last shots at elk and made the long drive home knowing that the guy in the mirror had been the difference in their quest.
Sorry if I rambled to much but I want to impart on you to focus on the actions that make for success. I have a friend who was part of the selection process in getting special people? in the military that do special things and he said the common denominator in all the successfull participants was the assessment was just a step in the process and that they would determine their fate.
No matter how much work you do, you are still just making an educated guess. Just pick an area that appeals to you based on whatever characteristics are important. Then get to know that area really, really well using the maps. Commit its features to memory. Go there with a plan A, B, C, and D. Use your woodsmanship in conjunction with that plan to find elk. They are loud, stinky, and leave a lot of sign. If the sign isn't fresh and the stank ain't there, move on. Once you find them, slow down and hunt them.
There are more resources available today then there was then. So, I looked for Units with large parcels of NF. Hunting pressure is going to be an issue. So, we looked for areas that for one reason or the other, looked like they offered ek sanctuary from that pressure. We used Topo maps for that. We ended up picking a unit that is heavily hunted and, we've batted 100% success on shot opportunities every trip. Not all of us killed one every trip. I think I'm the only one in our bunch that can claim that. But, we all had our chances every trip. You can have the same kind of luck
Elk hunting is tough. From start to finish. You gotta have a plan. The start of that hunt is finding the area you intend to go. We have found, in our very limited experience, the nostalgia of elk hunting usually tends to push hunters higher and, elk lower into steep, rough drainage's. You don't get the luxury of knowing the hidey holes that hold elk in nostalgic places when hunting pressure is involved. So, find the places that uses the pressure to your advantage and got get 'em bro. Elk hang out at 6000-7000 feet just as much as they do at 12000 when there are hunters in the woods. This is just my experience and, it is no means the gospel.
Good luck and God Bless
I've been on six elk hunts to date....in three different states....all DIY bowhunts. Went 3-3 on raghorn bulls in the same low demand LE Colorado unit. The photo is my 1st bull arrowed at 17 yards on day seven of the hunt. Since then, I've been more particular about the size of bull I shoot and have filled my tag on 2-3 trips. That said, I should be 3-3 on mature bulls. Let's just say I had one bad arrow out of the six.
My advice for a newbie living too far from the mountains to scout in person....
- Get yourself in decent shape. You don't have to be a marathon runner, but you do need to get in decent shape. You are not going to be able to train for altitude and you will get winded, but you can recover rather quickly if you train for it.
- Picking an area is tough, but there is alot of information on the web these days. I went with a low demand unit in Colorado that I could draw every other year. Limited tag numbers and a decent harvest percentage on bulls is what caught my attention.
- Plan at least two weeks! You will be going into an area that you have never set foot to try and put an arrow in animal you've never hunted. A week is just not enough IMO. Killed my 1st bull on day seven as mentioned. If I had only planned a week of hunting, it is likely I would have been pulling camp that evening instead of elk hunting.
- Don't be afraid to move camp. You must hunt where the elk are...not where they have been. Big difference between fresh elk sign and two week old elk sign.
- Play the wind...and the thermals! Most flatlanders don't have to deal with thermals very much....but no so in the mountains.
- Learn to cow call and bugle....but don't rely on calls alone to kill elk. My biggest bull never knew I was anywhere around. I never made a peep.
- Understand you can be more aggressive with elk than for whitetails back east. You can get away with alot as long as they don't smell you!
- Enjoy the mountains....even when you are not into elk. There is no other place on earth like the Rockies!
I learned volumes of info about elk hunting on public land on that first trip.
Needless to say, the hook was set, and I've been an elk addict ever since, mainly hunting the same area.
If there's one thing that has led to successful hunts over the last 19 years, I would have to say "persistence". Have a plan every morning, regardless of weather, silent bulls, etc...never quit !
Best of Luck, Jeff
All but one of my current best spots were discovered during the season, while hunting, often based on where others were hunting. I did a ton of driving around during the day and comparing where I believed other hunters would push elk with topo maps, DIY Hunting Maps (to figure out old closed access roads), StartMyHunt maps (for habitat information) and Google Earth maps I'd pre-downloaded and printed. Sometimes I didn't hunt for a morning or evening but instead looked for where others were parking to hunt to triangulate where they'd push elk.
On day 5 of the first season I called in and shot under a solid 340-class bull (shot low with a recurve, underestimated the range). A pair of other hunters came in and hunted in bad wind so I moved over the ridge to a different new spot where elk would flee. On day 8 we worked a 300+ bull in for my buddy who came for the weekend, but not quite in range. Day 9 I watched two 320-class bulls bugling back and forth but ran out of daylight. We'd never been to that spot before. Since then I keep finding new spots based on hunter pressure, and abandoning other marginal spots. Sometimes other hunters in camps will let some clues slip if you listen carefully and don't try to pry.
The key is to be extremely mobile and flexible until you find elk. Elevation isn't as important as where they go to escape from pressure. Even where there is no pressure they move a lot. Use your wheels, optics, and maps and you'll find elk.
My advice is this - don't wait too long to pack up camp and move 30 miles away. We hunted the first week and put probably 40 miles on our boots seeing no fresh sign before we packed up and moved to a different OTC unit. There was way less pressure at the new spot and we were into elk the first night, but only had 3 days to hunt and never closed the deal. If only we had moved sooner.
--Mitch
ElkNut1
As for my experience - we (5 guys) got skunked on our first trip. We had lots of fun and saw elk but couldn't close the deal. One of our guys could have shot a cow but he didn't and later he was wishing he did because he didn't have any other opportunity to shoot anything. Our next trip didn't happen till 7 years later which was in 2014 and we hunted for 2 weeks and come home with 5 bulls. Which I don't know if we will ever be able to do that again but I really believe in the success can be part of a mindset thing.
Hunt hard, all day, don't give up, be aggressive, set up in front of trees or brush, not behind them.
The main thing though for me is to go and have fun and enjoy the time spent with fellow hunters and to see God's beautiful country! And hopefully see elk..... ?
What works for me may not work for you, and what works for you may not work for me. There are just way too many variables.
Hell, first time elk hunters dont even know if they like it! [Highly unlikely but it could happen :) ]
1- Just go elk hunting.
2- Dont over think it.
3- Do the best for yourself and take away what means the most
Good Luck!
Good luck and go for it!
Scar.
For example, how did you pick "your" unit before you ever set foot in it? i know there is alot of info from the CO website, but the descriptions of the units are pretty vague.
how are you using maps? are you starting with topos to find drainages etc, and then looking at google earth to get an idea of the vegetation?
how are you thinking about access points? Are you starting with the mass trail heads, and then looking for alternative access points where the people coming from the mass trail heads will be pushing animals?
keep the ideas coming guys!
and please share your first time story!
PM me your email and I'll send a copy of my article from Bow&Arrow Hunting from year before last describing how to unravel a new elk area.
Just total luck
I'm low success on kills so far although I've been in elk on all my more recent hunts, but a lot of it can be chalked up to "learning the hard way" so far (I think). For me, picking units is all about hunting the type of terrain and style of hunting I want. Yes, to some extent, that means the hunt itself is in some ways as important as the kill for me. I believe general and otc areas generally hold distributed elk populations in similar densities if they are mostly public and have the habitat to support elk. Of course there are outliers that you would like to be able to spot from your comfy seat in front of your laptop. However, this can be a difficult task.
Parking at the end of a FS road that has no other vehicles can sometimes be a good thing, putting you into rutting elk galore near the road. Other times it means that there isn't an elk within 4 miles. Hard to tell without putting down the leather because there are just SO many variables.
3 weeks, 3 round trips from Arkansas to Colorado and I killed a small 5x5 on that last trip out.
Walked a lot, found elk, hunted hard. That's my only keys to success I guess
Prominent point are good places?to start scouting and save in both time and distance.
I killed my second and third elk based on a tidbit of information from a fellow Bowsite. He called and said he was leaving early and didn't like the area but had seen a monster bull. I figured that I only needed one.
The spot was fabulous and I killed an 8x6 and another hunter killed a 380+ bull. Come to find out that the state elk biologist took his wife into the same area.
Many times a single peice of information can determine success. Many times seasoned elk callers favor cow calls but I keep in mind Big Dan's opinion of them lest I forget to use the bugle.
It can be done.
All of our scouting was done electronically. We looked for drainages that ran east/west that had food, water, and heavy timber. We found that our best spots were in those drainages that had a spring or a seep on the north facing slope. Sometimes they can be tough to spot from Google Earth or a sat photo, but look for changes in vegetation on the north facing slopes. Typically these tend to be the bedding areas. If you can find those areas get near by with the wind and thermals in your favor. We never ventured into the bedding areas, but were able to call or intercept elk coming and going from them. In some cases, these areas were only a couple hundred feet vertical from the valley floor and in other cases they were 600-1000 vertical feet.
Last year we ventured into a new area and my cousin called a nice 6x6 that I shot. It was the 6th day of our hunt, but the 4th spot we tried. Never saw the spot before, but just went off what we saw on GE and we killed the bull 200yards from where we dropped a waypoint on the GPS while we were sitting in WI planning in July. Each spot we tried prior to that we worked bulls, but just couldn't seal the deal. All those spots were found on sat photo or GE.
Like I mentioned earlier, keep an open mind and a positive attitude. Learn as much about elk as you can until your hunt. I would highly recommend Elk101's University of Elk Hunting. It will help shorten the learning curve. Looking back on that first year I hunted I think my cousin and I both would have tagged out if we had some of the knowledge from UEH. You will never forget the sound of that first bugle or the picture of the first bull you call in. It is addicting. Good luck!
