Post by smj on Jul 8, 2007 23:12:13 GMT -5
I don't see an elk specific thread, BT if you think this should be listed elsewhere feel free to move it to a new home! Since last years adventures seemed to be reasonably popular, I thought I might try it again this year, and this year is starting right now! I carried my longbow along to shoot stumps with and see if I can guess a distance and then put an arrow in where I want it - didn't do to bad either!
So, where to begin?
We started by talking to horse people who travel around the state riding back in to the most remote sections. Then we started to look at the DOW (Division of Wildlife) hunting statistics to see what lined up and where the DOW said the animals are until we found a good match. What we found was a wonderful sounding spot – 5 miles or more back in just to get to the start of the area of interest!!! Grrrrr! Kevin and I are not getting any younger, so we had to rethink our requirements a bit more. Horses make this area very appealing, and we’d heard from a lot of different horse people about the numbers and quality of the herds back in this location – the DOW info was in agreement! We next looked for a sneaky way back in close to the area of choice, like an ATV or jeep trail that we might gain access to the fringes of the area, thinking that there would no doubt be some elk around those spots as well. Back to the maps! We found what we were looking for, and Kevin tried for a look at it around Fathers Day – 4 feet of snow had all trails cut off! So, we waited a while longer and went up to look at this new-to-us spot together this past weekend. On the map, it didn’t look at all bad, but the nature of the woods can make one spot great and another just plain awful simply based on how tough the woods are to get through.
It took us a few hours to get back in where we wanted to be, we had to weed out the trails made by ambitious 4-wheelers that are not supposed to exist, and the forest trails that inconsiderate souls had stolen the trails markers for. (It seems that some folks like them for souvenirs, or rip them out just to confuse others.) We did get where we wanted to go although it required a saw and a come-along to get there. It seems that a lot of trees lost their purchase along the trail and fell over on it. Smaller ones we went over and one big one we had to cut… But our saw was not big enough to do the job alone. We cut all around the log, and then hooked the come-along between a nearby tree and the end of the log to put enough strain on the remaining wood to be able to break it off. (I was very happy that more large trees were not down!)
So the spot we finally stopped was along the edge of an old burn, towards the north end of the targeted area of elk. This looked very good, the grass was looking in fine shape and the area extensive. After a short walk, we started to bump in to what we thought was only the beginning! Elk tracks all over the place, but no big guys, seemed like we were looking at the fresh tracks of cows and their young.
You can see some small elk tracks pounded in to the dirt here!
From low on the ridge up to the top the fire seemed to have burned without check. Here is the same shot, backed out a bit to show the lay of the land.
You can see that it has been a while, the new trees are starting to get a bit of height to them with a scattering of older trees that didn’t die out from the fire. Along the edges, you’d have dark timber right up to the burn, and then lots of fine grass in the burn itself.
About half way up the ridge, we found about 20 elk beds. Kevin did his normal evaluation of these, proclaiming them to indeed be elk beds, not deer. However, the number of small beds was very high with seemingly only a few large animals.
According to our map, if we went up over the ridge, we’d find a nice flat area, no trails through it, with several drainages coming down along the edges of this expanse. We were hopeful that this would be the mother load! We found just what we expected, but as we went up the ridge and over the top, the elk sign started to dry up. This happens some times, we moved out in to the flat to look around.
There was no shortage of water at this point, once out on the flat any open grassy area was running about ankle deep water throughout. The problem was trying to get through the woods! Deadfalls ruled supreme, and there was no way around them! Also, as we popped over the ridge and started down towards the large flat section, the elk sign dried up to nothing. It seemed we had either totally wet meadows or dark tough timber. No trails, no droppings, no tracks, no sign of elk at all. Not even old sign from years past. We fought our way from the east end to the west end and found nothing. This shook us up a bit, we’d expected way more from the area. It appeared that the elk just didn’t like this section. The meadows will have dried up considerably by September, but without any old sign around, it is hard to believe that they would be here later in the year.
Don't know if you can tell, but the water in the grass is ankle deep everywhere -
From here, to turn south would be a 700 to 1000 foot drop though ugly timber to get down to the north end of the area almost exclusive to the horse people. Kevin and I talked it over and the end result is that we are not up to even trying to pack an elk out through all of that! A big consideration if you have ever packed an elk out on your back. I was so disappointed that I didn’t even bother to take a photo of what the woods were like. Sorry! This area was about a mile across, we did the whole stretch through the middle and along the edges to peek over the sides. Nothing was hunter friendly anywhere, and there was no sign of elk anywhere to be found. There were, however, lots and lots of hungry mosquitoes! I tell you, if only the female mosquitoes bite, I have to imagine that a male mosquito has absolutely no problem finding a date in there! Crazy bad, and they all seemed to have a taste for bug spray! (Maybe they ate all the elk?)
We decided to head north, and see what that area was like and then come back down another drainage back to Kevin’s truck. As we topped the ridge again, the trees seemed to relent a bit, and we found a few signs of elk – but nothing new. For example, we found three old wallows all together in the same place and a few rubs scattered about.
Now, I always get excited about these signs, but I have to tell you that there was no fresh sign of more than 1 or 2 elk that we’d seen since the start of this little hike. No good trails through the area either, deadfalls everywhere and often piled up, it was like the elk just avoided it. So, we sat down to talk about what we’d seen, and what we’d not seen. (I was ready to start shooting mosquitoes with my longbow by this time! They were big and strong, you’d swat some of them and they’d just fly off!!!) What we came up with is that we believe to have a herd of around 20 cows and young down low on the burn. They graze up high and sleep down low, or maybe even where ever they are at when tired – but for now they stay in the area. There are no other good numbers of elk right in this area at this time of the year. Now this could change as September arrives, still, there is not enough old sign to support there ever being any large number of animals in this area. The weekend before season starts, Kevin and I agreed that we’d come up here on the motorcycles and take a very quick hike to see if the cows and young are still in the area, or if more interesting sign develops. This is currently logged and a 2nd choice location. It really looked good on the map… Oh, well.
So at this point, we finished our hike, and also did a mile or two on a foot path only access trail to see another section up there. We found only moose sign, and very little of that! This gave us maybe 7 miles on the day. The first mile in the burn was easy and quick, the last couple miles on the trail were also easy and quick. The four down on the flat going through and around the flats area took over an hour for each mile. So, even if we’d dropped down the 700 to 1000 feet and found a great spot to hunt – we are only hunting weekends this year since I am going to Canada and Kevin has no time off. We have no time to pack in for a day in order to hunt. Logistics is a huge part of elk hunting. It can be for getting camp in or it can be for getting an elk out – or both. You have to have time for both when you are doing it all by yourself! I know someone who hunted this area before, but a little farther west. I will talk with him and see what I learn, we may yet go back to scout around again.
The second spot we went to scout at will have to wait for another day!
So, where to begin?
We started by talking to horse people who travel around the state riding back in to the most remote sections. Then we started to look at the DOW (Division of Wildlife) hunting statistics to see what lined up and where the DOW said the animals are until we found a good match. What we found was a wonderful sounding spot – 5 miles or more back in just to get to the start of the area of interest!!! Grrrrr! Kevin and I are not getting any younger, so we had to rethink our requirements a bit more. Horses make this area very appealing, and we’d heard from a lot of different horse people about the numbers and quality of the herds back in this location – the DOW info was in agreement! We next looked for a sneaky way back in close to the area of choice, like an ATV or jeep trail that we might gain access to the fringes of the area, thinking that there would no doubt be some elk around those spots as well. Back to the maps! We found what we were looking for, and Kevin tried for a look at it around Fathers Day – 4 feet of snow had all trails cut off! So, we waited a while longer and went up to look at this new-to-us spot together this past weekend. On the map, it didn’t look at all bad, but the nature of the woods can make one spot great and another just plain awful simply based on how tough the woods are to get through. It took us a few hours to get back in where we wanted to be, we had to weed out the trails made by ambitious 4-wheelers that are not supposed to exist, and the forest trails that inconsiderate souls had stolen the trails markers for. (It seems that some folks like them for souvenirs, or rip them out just to confuse others.) We did get where we wanted to go although it required a saw and a come-along to get there. It seems that a lot of trees lost their purchase along the trail and fell over on it. Smaller ones we went over and one big one we had to cut… But our saw was not big enough to do the job alone. We cut all around the log, and then hooked the come-along between a nearby tree and the end of the log to put enough strain on the remaining wood to be able to break it off. (I was very happy that more large trees were not down!)
So the spot we finally stopped was along the edge of an old burn, towards the north end of the targeted area of elk. This looked very good, the grass was looking in fine shape and the area extensive. After a short walk, we started to bump in to what we thought was only the beginning! Elk tracks all over the place, but no big guys, seemed like we were looking at the fresh tracks of cows and their young.
You can see some small elk tracks pounded in to the dirt here!
From low on the ridge up to the top the fire seemed to have burned without check. Here is the same shot, backed out a bit to show the lay of the land.
You can see that it has been a while, the new trees are starting to get a bit of height to them with a scattering of older trees that didn’t die out from the fire. Along the edges, you’d have dark timber right up to the burn, and then lots of fine grass in the burn itself.
About half way up the ridge, we found about 20 elk beds. Kevin did his normal evaluation of these, proclaiming them to indeed be elk beds, not deer. However, the number of small beds was very high with seemingly only a few large animals.
According to our map, if we went up over the ridge, we’d find a nice flat area, no trails through it, with several drainages coming down along the edges of this expanse. We were hopeful that this would be the mother load! We found just what we expected, but as we went up the ridge and over the top, the elk sign started to dry up. This happens some times, we moved out in to the flat to look around.
There was no shortage of water at this point, once out on the flat any open grassy area was running about ankle deep water throughout. The problem was trying to get through the woods! Deadfalls ruled supreme, and there was no way around them! Also, as we popped over the ridge and started down towards the large flat section, the elk sign dried up to nothing. It seemed we had either totally wet meadows or dark tough timber. No trails, no droppings, no tracks, no sign of elk at all. Not even old sign from years past. We fought our way from the east end to the west end and found nothing. This shook us up a bit, we’d expected way more from the area. It appeared that the elk just didn’t like this section. The meadows will have dried up considerably by September, but without any old sign around, it is hard to believe that they would be here later in the year.
Don't know if you can tell, but the water in the grass is ankle deep everywhere -
From here, to turn south would be a 700 to 1000 foot drop though ugly timber to get down to the north end of the area almost exclusive to the horse people. Kevin and I talked it over and the end result is that we are not up to even trying to pack an elk out through all of that! A big consideration if you have ever packed an elk out on your back. I was so disappointed that I didn’t even bother to take a photo of what the woods were like. Sorry! This area was about a mile across, we did the whole stretch through the middle and along the edges to peek over the sides. Nothing was hunter friendly anywhere, and there was no sign of elk anywhere to be found. There were, however, lots and lots of hungry mosquitoes! I tell you, if only the female mosquitoes bite, I have to imagine that a male mosquito has absolutely no problem finding a date in there! Crazy bad, and they all seemed to have a taste for bug spray! (Maybe they ate all the elk?
)We decided to head north, and see what that area was like and then come back down another drainage back to Kevin’s truck. As we topped the ridge again, the trees seemed to relent a bit, and we found a few signs of elk – but nothing new. For example, we found three old wallows all together in the same place and a few rubs scattered about.
Now, I always get excited about these signs, but I have to tell you that there was no fresh sign of more than 1 or 2 elk that we’d seen since the start of this little hike. No good trails through the area either, deadfalls everywhere and often piled up, it was like the elk just avoided it. So, we sat down to talk about what we’d seen, and what we’d not seen. (I was ready to start shooting mosquitoes with my longbow by this time! They were big and strong, you’d swat some of them and they’d just fly off!!!) What we came up with is that we believe to have a herd of around 20 cows and young down low on the burn. They graze up high and sleep down low, or maybe even where ever they are at when tired – but for now they stay in the area. There are no other good numbers of elk right in this area at this time of the year. Now this could change as September arrives, still, there is not enough old sign to support there ever being any large number of animals in this area. The weekend before season starts, Kevin and I agreed that we’d come up here on the motorcycles and take a very quick hike to see if the cows and young are still in the area, or if more interesting sign develops. This is currently logged and a 2nd choice location. It really looked good on the map… Oh, well.
So at this point, we finished our hike, and also did a mile or two on a foot path only access trail to see another section up there. We found only moose sign, and very little of that! This gave us maybe 7 miles on the day. The first mile in the burn was easy and quick, the last couple miles on the trail were also easy and quick. The four down on the flat going through and around the flats area took over an hour for each mile. So, even if we’d dropped down the 700 to 1000 feet and found a great spot to hunt – we are only hunting weekends this year since I am going to Canada and Kevin has no time off. We have no time to pack in for a day in order to hunt. Logistics is a huge part of elk hunting. It can be for getting camp in or it can be for getting an elk out – or both. You have to have time for both when you are doing it all by yourself! I know someone who hunted this area before, but a little farther west. I will talk with him and see what I learn, we may yet go back to scout around again.
The second spot we went to scout at will have to wait for another day!
