Elk Nutrition in October

[idahohikker]

Hey guys, I'm looking at a mid-October hunt in Idaho for this year or one of these years. I have years of experience hunting elk in in September or the snow in November.

My main question is whether most of the high-elevation feed has dried up and become less valuable, making the elk move down in elevation. (For the purposes of this question, I want to ignore pressure, which I know can affect elk more than food at times--I'm focused on hunting backcountry areas without much pressure at all). Are meadows still likely elk spots? At some point, I know that the colder temps at higher elevations freeze the food and it's not as nutritious, which is a reason for them to move down a bit (even though bulls normally seem to stay about as high as they can). I would think that happens in late October/early November rather than mid-October. Mature bulls are weird (unpredictable) though. Biologists I've talked to sometimes see them at 7 or 8,000 feet in mid-December.

Randy Newberg was talking about how many times he has seen bulls in a sanctuary areas after the rut where they don't move more than 400 yards and eat on the edge of timber or in little grassy areas where there are breaks in the canopy. Those would mostly be on North slopes, right? If I could find a North Slope with some pockets of feed in it, that seems like it would be a good sanctuary for a post-rut bull.

So, I know there are variations but I'm just looking for some significant trends as far as where elk are meeting their nutrition needs in October.

 

[idahohikker]

I was talking to a biologist about this today. He said that he'd describe bulls moving down the mountain as feed freezes and dies as similar to their spring migration. He said bulls will often be mid mountain after the middle of October in the area we were talking. He recommended looking for them in the usual places--south facing slopes, any grass pockets amidst timber.