How much time to you give an area?

[flatlanderhuffandpuff]

Those of you who hunt from a base or spike camp, how long do you hunt a particular zone before moving on?

Everything I have been reading has said move until you find elk. while hunting from a camp do you just push farther from camp every day or stay in the same region and hope something gets pushed in to you? I imagine after the first few days of the season the place you are tying for the first time has already been tried by someone else.

Are you finding where you think they will be headed and just wait until they get enough pressure to go there?

 

[Bynumlife]

That's a great question and I'm assuming you're talking OTC elk hunting. For me (and I'm not an expert) I always have backup location ready explore and I can almost always find elk and I haven't hunted the same spot two years in a row in the last 10 years. Preparation is key. I spend hours looking over google earth, maps and Bing maps studying terrain. I call local biologists and outfitters seeing what I can find out. Most important I find place the majority of others don't want to or won't go.

Last year I had a place like that picked out. I spent the day in the woods and came across zero fresh sign and zero bugles. That was all it took for me to pull out. There was more pressure than we expected and the elk moved onto private. We had a backup location picked out, somewhere we had never been, packed up camp and drove 2 hrs away. Next morning the elk were where we thought they would be. 1-2 miles away from trails, northern exposure and good bedding and food. Didn't end up killing one last year but it wasn't because we couldn't find elk.... I missed.


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[weaver]

For elk I give an area a max of 24 hours. If I haven't seen or heard anything I'm moving on. Either hiking to a different area or out to the truck and starting over in a new spot.
I'm not waiting on elk that may or may not be pressured to me although I'm sure there are places were that strategy works.

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[cnelk]

I position my base camp so I can hunt out in all directions, either on foot or drive.
Think like a wheel hub as base camp and spokes going out in all directions for hunting.

Elk can arrive in a place overnight so it's a fine line to know when to give up on an area.
I will check different spots each day until I make contact.

Elk hunting is like a poker game and new deck of cards.
And each day you get a shuffle and a new hand.
Never fold.

 

[Ross]

I give it one day, contingent on rutting sign, rubs, active wallows and bugles. If I'm not seeing active rutting activity I am off to another location. I may come back a week later, but experience tells me there are drainages come 9/1 that are getting active and I want to find those locations where the sign tells me the bulls are getting fired up. The season is short and we don't have enough days to waste in areas where the opportunity may not be as good as others.

 

[Bar]

I have well over 20 spots I can go to. So, for a 9-day hunt I'll give a spot a few hours before moving to another spot. This isn't from a base camp though. These are areas I can drive close to and hike in. I'm always moving. Either in the hunt or moving to another area to hunt. It doesn't take me long to know if elk are there or not. Elk move around a lot too in hunting season. The secret is to know all the spots they move to and go to them.

 

[Ross]

7 weeks and they will start some fun and be hard horned..i have hunted this drainage for 37 yrs, have yet to lay eyes on this guy or pick up his sheds...if he is still around this year he will be a stud. had another camera capture him in another drainage last year so hopefully he made it through the winter

 

[Bar]

Yup! That's a good one.

 

[flatlanderhuffandpuff]

It's interesting to hear 24 hours as the max amount of time given. That would have been my guess, less than that, not so much.

It sounds like most of you are archery hunters who are relying on bugles and rut activity to determine if an area is active. For rifle season, First rifle in my case, are you still going to rely on the occasional bugle or just look for fresh sign?

Thanks for the responses. As I figured, this is very different from the whitetail hunting I'm used to. If I know a good spot, I will just wait until the deer come to me, they aren't nearly as migratory as elk.

 

[Jason Snyder]

The rifle question is a very open ended one. If it's early rifle, and I'm hunting sanctuary areas for lone bulls, I may give an area more than 24 hours. If it's a migrational route, then it's a matter of being in the money spot when they come through. Knowing weather patterns and movement patterns will help you decide if you are in a good spot or not. If there is snow on the ground where I can see tracks and glass feed craters from a distance, I'll be more inclined to move if I'm not finding those.

For archery, I'd agree 110% with Ross. 24 hours and I'm looking at somewhere new. That might be 1 mile away or it might be 10.

 

[bwlacy]

With only 1 trip out west to elk hunt. I had a hard time determining how fresh the sign was. We found lots of sign, tracks, poop, rubs, etc, but no elk.

 

[Bar]

With only 1 trip out west to elk hunt. I had a hard time determining how fresh the sign was. We found lots of sign, tracks, poop, rubs, etc, but no elk.

I don't pay much attention to sign unless the sign is a bedding area. Elk can move too fast to put too much stock in sign during hunting seasons.

 

[bluetick78]

In archery season I travel with my camp on my back traveling north facing slopes until I find extremely fresh elk sign or spot them. Then I'll try to make a move or camp on them until morning and try a stalk or calling one in if they're vocal. In Idaho we deal with elk that get pressured by wolves, so sometimes they are quiet if wolves are in the area. If I'm not finding elk I'm moving constantly until I do. In rifle season I get high on the mountain and glass until I spot them. Rifle hunts in OTC units tend to have spooky elk that are always moving, so I am very aggressive in getting to them as quickly as possible. I try to avoid areas that border private land that could hamstring you in killing a bull.