Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting How much snow does it take?

How much snow does it take to move them out of the high country?

Was hunting out of Grangeville Idaho once for whitetail, before the wolves killed them all, and one set of elk tracks crossed the road from the wilderness in over 4' of snow. Thought that was one tough bastid right there.

A lot more than this...

I think just hunting in 4 feet of snow takes one tough bastid.

Six inches for three days. The calves can't paw the snow, and so, they whine until the lead cow points them to winter range. At least, that's what the guides at Three Forks told me.

Makes sense to me

It is way more complicated than just snow depth and depends on the area.
They need cover, pasture or browse, and water.
They will stay put in deep snow and strip the aspens trunks bare if they have access to the other 2 elements and if the herd cow decides to stand pat.

Thumped this one a few weeks ago at 11,650' on opening day and received the sunburn of a lifetime. Three days later snow came and zero elk were seen.

2 years ago, we got about 6" of snow the last week of the season and they moved. We caught a herd way down low and got 2 where we could drive the pickup under 1/4 mile through the sagebrush and load them.

My experience is that it does not take much to move them some at least. Add to that, some hunting pressure and they bail for the low private land.

I think the big bulls will hold tighter, later.

Wind.

conditions for moving the elk down around here are lining up over the next couple of days. We've had a few inches of snow, that's going to melt down some and it's going to freeze good and hard here the next couple of nights. That'll make grazing difficult at the higher elevations and will likely move elk down. Most likely they'll find some really difficult spots to move into.

Snow will move elk but so will sunshine - back up the mountain. In our area in NM, south facing slopes will melt a lot sooner and become a magnet for elk. While the snow piles up on sunless slopes and under tree cover, they will take advantage of southern slopes for grass and warmth.
Your experience may be different.

I seen Big bulls down on ranch land a week ago, before any snow..... They seem to have moved the same time every year for the last five. Off the forest land and down to the ranch land a few days prior to the rifle season...... This is a General area with quite a bit of pressure, but seems they move more from pressure then weather.

I think elk have adapted to big game openers by the amount of daylight and darkness. Or the frequency of slamming truck doors, horses and loud talking.

All I know is it is dang depressing to drive past bulls after a long day of seeing nothing, they seemed content to stay there til spring, feeding in the open at 4 in the afternoon........

I was in your neck of the woods the third week of September on a mulie hunt and we took two real nice bucks with Salt River Range Outfitters. The elk were way up high and not moving or bugling much due to the unseasonably hot weather. That's some gorgeous country you live in!

Ding ding ding ding ding ding! We have a winner!

Now days it is more about hunting pressure than the amount of snow. I don't do late hunts anymore, but I have killed a considerable amount of elk in deep snow. They don't seem to be bothered all that much by it as long as they can paw thru it or reach southern exposures.

These elk were part of 300+ that were on the valley floor north of Gunnison, CO in the early days of the 2nd rifle season this year. From other reports it seems they had been there since early 1st rifle season. BTW. Those are cows in the background. Don't let anyone tell you elk won't frequent the same areas as cows

.

However, there are always stupid ones that don't get the message. These three elk were killed within about 100yards of each other at about 10,000ft elevation a little north of that . The two bulls were this year and last year and the small cow a few years ago when the snow was about a foot deep.







In the top photo, the snow as about 3 foot deep. Our boots were in it as we were riding. We killed three elk in about 5 minutes.

That does not look like fun.