Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Elk Hunt: Sudden Invitation: Advice Please

Yeah, he told me the price for out of state. What can you do. It's only a weekend hunt. Crazy expensive all around, when you add the plane tickets, license, and tag. I'll have to sell a rifle or two. Don't look forward to being groped at the airport, either.

This is the factory load I would use.

http://www.federalpremium.com/products/details/rifle.aspx?id=820

You will be climbing a fair bit up there. I have a place in the mountains just north of CDA outside of Sandpoint and have seen decent bulls very close to the house. Good luck to you.

Thank you.

No groping at the Spokane airport. Nice little place. Also, if you have time to stay a bit longer there are monster rainbow and lake trout in the big lakes in the area, Lake Pend Oreille and Priest Lake for sure. A half or full day charter is a blast and you will catch fish. My wife with her first lake trout.

take a day pack with the usual stuff. Any factory .308 load will work fine.

If you don't have a good pair of boots now is the time, wear them on your hikes. I recommend lowa tibets.

Yeah, I have a couple of pairs of appropriate boots. I will walk with them.

good binocular, good boots, good binocular, good boots, good bino, good boots- those are the 6 most important things after your survival stuff-

I'll figure out which of my two pair of hunting boots feels the best. I have a nice Steiner set of binoculars that should work.

The Coeur d'Alene area isn't particularly high in altitude but the hills are pretty steep. Spend the next couple weeks doing your hiking with a pack full of water jugs. You won't have an altitude sickness problem but you'll be gasping when working hard.
The area is also quite brushy. Shots are likely to be fairly short. Your 308 is excellent for the range.

Get a good topo map of the area and a compass or gps and know how to use them. In that thick timber, you can stand on top of a hill and not be able to see the next hill. If it's cloudy you can get turned around real easy.

A large roll of orange engineers tape can be very handy to find your way back to a kill. Years ago I lost a deer because I couldn't find it. I shot it right at dusk and decided to come back in the morning to pack it out. I didn't have any way to mark my trail and I couldn't find it. I've carried tape ever since and have needed it a few times.

I have some of that orange tape left over from my last few hunts, and also have a Garmin GPS, the old style that just lets you establish way points that you can get back to. I'll make sure it still works.

Lotta people here have given you some good advice,but you are not listening well. Settle on one rifle ,one scope ,one load, one bino and whatever equipment that needs to go NOW and quit worrying details to death wondering about it.Your worried about success and all you really need to think about is enjoying the experience of the adventure.On a short notice deal like this a guy plucked out of Montana, Wyo, or Colo who hunts elk all the time might pull off an elk kill. You are going with someone who just moved there and don't know squat. It is ok, you gotta start somewhere.You can do alot of learning in a short time, of course you have to pay for it. Concentrate on your health and conditioning ,streamline your baggage to absolutely no non essentials. If the cost of a license seems to high for your chances tell your buddy you just want to go along for the learning experience and help him pack one out if he gets lucky. Prices of nonresident tags are what the market will bear and if you ask anyone who is a resident competing against well healed nonresidents he will tell you they are way to damn cheap.More elk been killed by BA 30-06 and shells on sale at whatevermart than all the agonizing you are doing over minute details. In the real world it's called "not being able to see the forest for one tree". First thing you need to do really is get off the internet and work on your conditioning for the hunt or mount the laptop on the handlebars of your stationary bike to use while you are pedaling. Best of luck. Magnum Man

Couldn't have said it better.

Speaking of tag costs...In Idaho, a non-resident deer tag can be used on a wolf or bear whenever both the deer and wolf/bear seasons are open at the same time, which is usually the case.

I just ran into a guide and his clients up a canyon I regularly hunt. They were packing up and heading out after hunting for 10 days. I asked about their success and they had not shot anything. He said his clients had done nothing to get into shape for hunting. Nice people but not in shape to hunt the mountains.

They had arrived thinking they had hired a guide and were riding horses and success would be guaranteed.

As stated above. Go and have a good time, Spend as much time as you can between now and leaving to get into shape. don't worry about micro managing the details.

well, puttin the rubber to the road you know

Sorry TRH, but for a wk-end hunt on national forest I would forget the gun and tag unless your buds know something I don't know. Also, if you are driving could you take a camp and hunt a few more days?

The only advice I give to newby elk hunters is that you can't be afraid of hiking/riding miles in the dark.

b-b-b-but-t, there be bears in da bushes....

I remember an elk hunt where we left camp at 4AM. We hiked 4 miles in the dark (took extra flashlight batteries) and I shot an elk within 30 min of legal shooting light. You have to get to where they are.

Bears skeer me...but only the "G" kind....