HighUintas
WKR
- Joined
- Feb 2, 2020
- Messages
- 2,077
I went out and checked my cameras recently in the area I had taken my wife elk hunting for her first time last year. We thought that a major fire really close to the area had pushed the elk out because we didn't see any after the first couple of days and that's when the fire got bad. Apparently they didn't leave the area!! I had lots of great pictures in the following days after we were done.
So, I guess we just had too much scent in the area and weren't moving through it undetected. I've been hunting my whole life, mainly whitetail in the Midwest though, so I'm much newer to 'best practices' for moving through the mountains and hunting a 3 mile radius area in the mountains while minimizing the impact on elk movement and mood.
This area seems harder to hunt to me than other places in the same mountains. The area where the majority of the wallows and sign are is relatively flat... Sort of like a plateau with gentle hills on top, heavily treed, and the winds love to swirl there. I've got two great water holes/wallows there with loads of great bull pictures, but I can't figure out the best direction to access them from. I also don't think they have a main bedding area there, or at least not that I can find. So, I'm not sure of the best routes at different times of day that I should take to avoid unknowingly having my scent blow into them. I ran into a couple of guys there last year, so I also don't want to blow the elk out and screw up their hunting.
Are there any generally accepted practices or rules of thumb for moving through elk woods that I should be doing to minimize the impact of my presence there? Any tips?
So, I guess we just had too much scent in the area and weren't moving through it undetected. I've been hunting my whole life, mainly whitetail in the Midwest though, so I'm much newer to 'best practices' for moving through the mountains and hunting a 3 mile radius area in the mountains while minimizing the impact on elk movement and mood.
This area seems harder to hunt to me than other places in the same mountains. The area where the majority of the wallows and sign are is relatively flat... Sort of like a plateau with gentle hills on top, heavily treed, and the winds love to swirl there. I've got two great water holes/wallows there with loads of great bull pictures, but I can't figure out the best direction to access them from. I also don't think they have a main bedding area there, or at least not that I can find. So, I'm not sure of the best routes at different times of day that I should take to avoid unknowingly having my scent blow into them. I ran into a couple of guys there last year, so I also don't want to blow the elk out and screw up their hunting.
Are there any generally accepted practices or rules of thumb for moving through elk woods that I should be doing to minimize the impact of my presence there? Any tips?