Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Elk and fences

mudhen is correct, but should add that some cows and half-grown calves will hit the top strand as they go over - will break or pull it loose over time. They are creatures of habit and tend to use the same routes, so it's easy to know where to look for breaks. The only times I have seen a bull hit a fence is when hit and trying to flee - but running out of power.

Our place is heavy elk country and we devote quite a bit of time (like yesterday afternoon) to repairing fences - need to keep the cattle out of here when ranchers are grazing the forest leases.

I have found that two things help: 1. Doubling the top strand of barbed wire in most vulnerable places (and tying on small pieces of colored ribbon); 2. Installing "jumps" at the locations where they habitually cross fences. To do this, I either drop or eliminate the top strand and place a thin-walled steel or heavy PVC pipe (white, if possible) over the lowered top strand. So far, this does not seem to let cattle in. Sometimes I create a small opening close to the ground for small elk calves.

In one way a nuisance - in another, we get to watch many of these amazing creatures.

Our cabin is a couple of miles from the White Mountain Apache Reservation, and I usually go out a couple times each week to watch elk. I've lost count of the herds I've watched cross roads that have cattle fences on each side, but it's probably at least 500 over the past 45 years. Bulls and cows can walk right up to a cattle fence and clear it effortlessly, but the calves sometimes hit the top wire, fall on the other side and limp off.

As for knocking down fences, way back when we first bought our cabin's land I spent a lot of time building a fence with oak posts and aspen rails. A year or two later, I drove up to the cabin after dark and spooked a herd that was in our front yard. They took out two sides of fencing on our two-acre parcel in an instant.

I never bothered to repair it

Bill Quimby