Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Season opens Saturday. Heavy rain forecast

General elk season opens in my unit on Saturday. Full moon this weekend, so that's not the best. Supposed to be heavy rain coming in Friday and lasting all weekend, so that's probably good. High temps will be 35-45 deg F where we will be, so could be some snow, I guess.

Hoping the rain keeps all the fairweather hunters home watching football. I don't like hunting in the rain but I'd rather hunt than watch it rain.....

Need to grease my boots and wax my rifle.

Good luck! Greased my boots last week!

Post photos of that big bull when he's on the ground!!!!

We have tags in unit 48. Same forecast here. We were up there deer hunting the last 2 days and saw almost nothing. The weather change should help a lot.

Heavy rain should negate the effects of the full moon, keep the scents down, and drown out noise.
Also will be a pain in the ass.

Way better hunting in the rain. Same forecast here, in fact supposed to be a really big one headed in. I've had my best luck hunting storms.

Every time I look at the forecast, it shows heavier rain, Fri through Sun. I'm thinking about my llamas out in that stuff. They're pretty waterproof but eventually it'll soak in and they can have a miserable time of it. The season opens Saturday but we might hold off until Monday after the worst of it passes. Mon & Tues shows light snow showers. The elk should be really out moving then.

I will skip the opener.. Too many folks out.. Plus I have tags that run late. Best of luck.

Our tags are good through Nov 9 plus 3 of the 4 of us are retired so we can go whenever we want to. It's only a 90 mile drive on a good highway. I'm not in a rush to get out there.

Ditto for me. Nearly all my rifle kills on elk have been in the rain. No crunchy ice or dry sticks. You can get right on them.

Yay! I've finally reached the point where I can afford some nice wool hunting gear.

I cover the muzzle of my rifle with a disc of electrical tape and trim it so it just covers the crown. It does not effect pressure or accuracy. Put it on before you leave the house. If you are too forceful chambering your first round the air pressure in the barrel will pop it off. It's always a little weird thumbing it back on with a live one in the rifle. One of the things I hate is unloading after a day in the rainy woods and seeing a bullet discolored from sitting in the water that trickled down the bore. That has to be bad for pressure and it plays heck on carbon steel barrels and throats. The tape prevents all that.

BTW- Works great on muzzle loaders too, except I use duct tape for them. I put in on before I cap. You can carry a black power gun for days in the rain this way and your odds of it going off when you bust the cap are almost 100%. I use the black plastic nipple cover from the Lyman weather kit when I get back to camp/truck. It physically prevents the hammer from hitting the cap and it makes a moisture seal around the base of the nipple.

Hearing of some nice bulls coming out of the Clearwater and Palouse districts during Archery. A friend's Son-in-Law shot a monster in the limited draw area of unit 18 last weekend with his rifle. A big, wide bull with some palmation.

Half the state of Alaska runs around with electrical tape on their muzzles. People down here lower 48 see me doing it and they ask me what that is and then its onto 20 question survey.

Roy,

saw your truck and trailer all loaded up on Friday morning in the Walmart parking lot taking up 7 or 8 parking spaces at 6:30 AM...

Looks like you were all loaded up to go after Elk...

I had to head up to Potland that day and take care of an account up there...

Hope you didn't drown this weekend and have some luck out there...

If I go, it'll be second season.....

Yup! I keep getting asked if I'm afraid of blowing up my rifle. What? More than that inch of water sloshing around in your barrel?