What to choose: Close to home but worse or farther from home but better unit...?

[rob86jeep]

I'm trying to find a place/unit for OTC archery elk this year (Colorado) and am torn on where to focus. I would love to find a place close to home which would afford me a lot more time in the woods (both scouting and hunting) due to family obligations, but am having trouble. I'm torn between trying to make a unit close to me "work" vs driving to a unit farther away knowing that I would be limited on scouting trips and hunting time. I know that elk can be found almost everywhere in CO which leans me to the closer unit, but what would you choose?

 

[justinspicher]

I try to hunt as close to home as possible, it makes my pack lighter, I can hunt longer and I can hunt better knowing that I’m not having to stay in the woods for a 12 hour night in October/November. It’s also a lot easier to get help when hunting closer to home as folks are not really willing to drive further than they have to haul out an elk on their back.

 

[Indian Summer]

What about the fact that a better unit requires less scouting? I’ll take quality over quantity.

 

[briscoetab]

This is completely my perspective and opinion not experience because I am a new elk hunter. I am assuming you work normal schedule where you have 2 day a week off? Perhaps you can take off for a week during hinting season? How far are you talking about driving to get to decent/good unit and are the units near you truly bad units? What is your goal, just shooting any elk or trophy elk? If you are after large elk your going to have to go somewhere that would have them if the units around you don’t.

For me if the better units are 2-4 hours away I would definitely choose to go to those units because for me driving that far is nothing, I mean you could easily scout and hunt Saturday and Sundays. Yea you might get a little less sleep but if success rates are significantly better for the units you have to drive to it would be more than worth it in my opinion.

If you are going to have to drive more than 4 hrs I would try to make the closer units work unless the units that are close to you are really really bad units with extremely low success rates/harvest rates. If you have to drive more than 4hrs I would say at that point it would limit the time you have to scout and hunt because you would need to waste a day for travel probably.

For me I would feel good about leaving Friday after work at 5Pm and making it to a unit 4hrs away and spend all day Saturday and Sunday scouting/hunting then heading home late Sunday. Of course if you can hit it in the middle of the week might be better off. Doing that for 3-4 weekends in a row during the season means you could have several days hunting and then combine that with a few vacation days and you should have quite a bit of time in the woods.

I wouldn’t feel like I would have much more time in the woods hunting closer to home unless you are talking about walking out your backdoor into the unit. Even if the units close to home are 15-20 mins away it’s not going to allow you that much more time in the woods compared to a unit 4hrs away.

Now if you do have a unit that is at your backdoor it would be pretty tempting just to stay there and hunt.

Not sure if that helps or not but that would be my thought process. Like I said almost zero experience but thought maybe I could offer up how I would think through it.

 

[rob86jeep]

This is completely my perspective and opinion not experience because I am a new elk hunter. I am assuming you work normal schedule where you have 2 day a week off? Perhaps you can take off for a week during hinting season? How far are you talking about driving to get to decent/good unit and are the units near you truly bad units? What is your goal, just shooting any elk or trophy elk? If you are after large elk your going to have to go somewhere that would have them if the units around you don’t.

For me if the better units are 2-4 hours away I would definitely choose to go to those units because for me driving that far is nothing, I mean you could easily scout and hunt Saturday and Sundays. Yea you might get a little less sleep but if success rates are significantly better for the units you have to drive to it would be more than worth it in my opinion.

If you are going to have to drive more than 4 hrs I would try to make the closer units work unless the units that are close to you are really really bad units with extremely low success rates/harvest rates. If you have to drive more than 4hrs I would say at that point it would limit the time you have to scout and hunt because you would need to waste a day for travel probably.

For me I would feel good about leaving Friday after work at 5Pm and making it to a unit 4hrs away and spend all day Saturday and Sunday scouting/hunting then heading home late Sunday. Of course if you can hit it in the middle of the week might be better off. Doing that for 3-4 weekends in a row during the season means you could have several days hunting and then combine that with a few vacation days and you should have quite a bit of time in the woods.

I wouldn’t feel like I would have much more time in the woods hunting closer to home unless you are talking about walking out your backdoor into the unit. Even if the units close to home are 15-20 mins away it’s not going to allow you that much more time in the woods compared to a unit 4hrs away.

Now if you do have a unit that is at your backdoor it would be pretty tempting just to stay there and hunt.

Not sure if that helps or not but that would be my thought process. Like I said almost zero experience but thought maybe I could offer up how I would think through it.

They're all OTC units so the success rates are all around 10%, the closer units just have a lot more people and roads so I'm assuming they'll be more crowded (although I haven't hunted them yet so I can't say for sure). I'm only looking to drive about 4 hours max for the further places, but that's still a trek in my Jeep that I'm not looking forward too.

I probably going to scout out the closer spots a little more before I venture out, as it would be really convenient if I can find a spot I like with an hour or so of my house.

 

[Voyageur]

How much closer/farther? If the distance is substantial I would take the unit that gives me more time in the field. If it's only a matter of a couple hours or so closer I would go with the better hunting.

 

[Gerbdog]

I know my plan this year in Colorado (also where I'm at) is to hit some close / not great units during the week after work (1.5 hours to hunting spot tops) and pray to stumble on something (never know what could happen when you are in the woods) and then use my weekends to hit those 4+ hour away units. The idea is to just get as much time in the woods as I can. Still working out a plan for the vacation time in September, have family coming up to hunt Colorado with me for a week and I need to get plans B through F figured out once pressure starts, the biggest issue is that week will be during Muzzleloader.... bummer.

 

[ElkArcher918]

Within reason drive to the unit(s) that has the better hunting and less pressure. It's up to you how you balance family and work obligations, not easy. Shit, most of my hunting trips are 3-4.5 hrs. away but scouting and experience tells me that these "far away spots" are more productive than sticking around the Font Range.

 

[Poser]

For elk hunting, more scouting is almost always better. I’d take that option vs the longer drive.

 

[Trumpkin The Dwarf]

Closer unit, if they're both OTC. Unless a couple scouting trips really has you not liking the area.

 

[rob86jeep]

Well, I picked out about 3 or 4 spots on OnX within an hour or so of my house so I'll do some scouting there first and then decide if it's worth it to travel any further.

 

[AaronMColeman]

I’d go closer for sure. Closer means you could potentially spend more time there throughout the year, get to know terrain, kinda create a “home range”. 90% of elk hunting is knowing where they are (that’s a scientific number based on scientific research). I feel like you can get to know closer better and that will overcome crowds, roads, and low success rates.