Elk just have bigger territories. Many herds whether 5 or 50 will make big loops, staying in one location and feeding 2-3 days before moving on ,unless threatened.
Older mature bulls will revisit the same hidey holes after the rut. I know a few of them, but years ago, I stopped trying to get into them figuring it wasn't worth the grief. I tell some younger guys about them every once in awhile when they say they want to kill and elk no matter what.
Ditto for cows, they use the same breeding and calving grounds most years and the same migration routes to and from winter ranges, unless some dumb smuck shoots the lead cows who are more familiar with the route.
When someone unknowingly bust into a herd of elk and they go ten different directions, that is totally different than if they catch your wind or see a movement a ways off and sneak off into the timber. Get into good elk country and you will find their trails that look like cattle trails from them using the same paths over and over.
Hunt country that has little or no hunter pressure and they are fairly predictable. Hunt country with a lot of pressure, and you change your tactics to figure out how the elk respond to that and what other hunters are going to be doing
You could sit on a whitetail trail and probably wihtin 3 days or less see a whitetail.
You, at least lets say I, could find an elk trail and sit all season and never see one due to various issues. At least IMHO.
Walked 12 miles one morning to find sign... found it, but it looked old, but only a couple of days old... walked it agian with the wife the next morning and back... to verify it was a few days old and just nothing there right then. I bet we could have hunted that portion the whole season and been SOL... instead we moved around and found them the next evening, appx 15 miles away
