Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting how many guys have successfully still hunted elk?

Love that picture, Brad!

Spot and stalk frequently morphs into a still-hunt...

I think "up close" is more adrenalin filled than far out, myself....I mean, you wouldn't want an encounter with a beautiful woman from too far away, would you?

Geez Bob, get a room! But you are right in that spot and stalk can easily end up in a still hunt mode. In other words, you see them from a great distance but once you get closer, you might not know where they really are and therefore it changes in a spot 'n stalk. It beats sitting in a tree waiting for a deer to walk by!

My son & I.
All still hunted, none knew we were there till it was too late.

New Mexico Muzz



Arizona Archery



Wyoming Rifle

370" from Saskatchewan.

DF

Better count me in...never killed one any other way, except a couple spot-n-stalks...

H O L Y - - - M O O O L Y ! !

And I love the CHOCOLATE HUGE antlers T O O !!

I used to like you

First time elk hunting was fall of 2011.
I thought that we would see the elk at a distance and get closer.
Did not work that way. Area we were in was timbered heavily in spots and wide open plains in others.
Finding sign in the timber kept us in the timber.
I tried sitting on a meadow one day, but saw nothing.
3rd day we went out after the snow stopped and I decided to go by myself to a new area.
I was what you would call hunting slowly and carefully.
looking ahead and to the sides and when nothing was spotted moved some more.

I had just come through a small clearing and was in a bunch of little pines looking down another clearing when I spotted a big brown rock around 80yrds away, or so I thought.

Being a bit slow I kneeled and checked in my binos. Yep, a cow laying there looking my way.
I did not have a clear shot from kneeling, so I stood moving just a little for a shot with the cow standing at the same time.

She thought about to long.

Having re-thought how I handled the shot several times given the chance I would have shot her in her bed.

The kneeling thing I wish I could learn to not do especially in that situation. She could have bolted and that would have been it.

I could have verified she was a cow with the rifle scope at that range.

I glassed her to make sure there were no horns on her head. Very bad with a cow tag in my pocket to find dead cow with horns.

Anyway I guess you could say I got my first elk by still hunting.

Four inches of fresh powder, cut a hot elk track, do a fast sneak-stalk through the spruce/fir elk jungles, either the elk sees you or you see the elk first-- it's one of the ultimates in hunting elk with a rifle.

I killed two elk this year, one at 45 yds, the other at 25 yds--they both saw me first..........


Casey

You are right Bob--very frequently.


Casey

Done it twice...

10 yds.



and 63 yds...got busted by a cow at 30ish

Dandy bulls!

still hunting or spot and stalk (i call it "slippin") is the only way i have taken elk (except on several guided hunts). no better challenge for me than slippin up on an elk with a recurve or longbow. of course, sometimes the elk is coming toward me, so don't know what you call that method.

Plus P

Dober

Couple quick things, first off that's one of my fav rifles ever, wish I'd of bought that one when you sold it. 2ndly, that's a heck of a bull and one of my all time fav pics. And 3rdly you've got the Predator Mode down to a science and do it better than anyone I know!

Dober


(give me a hoot tmrw)

I've still-hunted into unaware elk several times, but never a shooter. I've also done what Casey mentions- cut a fresh track and chase the bastid. You know there's a bull standing at the end of those tracks!

Still-hunting is my MO for blacktails; I love it.

I love to still hunt the brush and timber of western Washington. You know you have done something right when you get your elk at 20yds to 60 yds. I have shot at least 12 bulls at less than 30 yds.

Indeed!

Mighty kind of you on all counts Dober... that was a memorable hunt. Not the hardest bull I've gotten by any means, but it was just one of those "perfect" elk hunting days... excellent, fresh tracking snow and perfect weather. I cut a big, fresh boar grizzly trask within 1/4 mile of where I ended up killing the bull.

Yeah, I really LIKED that rifle. I've got most of the parts to replicate it and I likely will one of these days. I'd prolly run a 200 grainer in it this time around

� Spot and stalk and still hunting are quite different.�
�Spot and stalk frequently morphs into a still-hunt �
Both true but you can,t effectively hunt elk unless you at least know which drainage or canyon currently holds one of the elk herds or groups as the elk tend to move in groups thru several canyons, and in my experience youll rarely see all or even most of the elk so getting in close thru several sets of screening guard cows constantly watching the area to get to a location where you can get a good shot at a legal bull on public land is a challenge.
Now I see all the TV movies and videos, where there�s 50-70 elk streaming thru narrow open meadows and some hunter and guide sitting on a ridge 400 yards out has his pick , probably filmed on private ranches where there�s minimal hunting pressure, or near Yellowstone , but in my 42 plus years of hunting elk that�s just not happening on public land.
What I commonly see is much smaller groups, briefly glimpsed thru binoculars walking into aspen or conifer stands, once spotted the hunter must calculate a route keeping him down wind and in cover and a route that allows him to arrive in a reasonable time frame, and knowing that there a high probability the elk won,t be at that exact location when he gets there.

Still hunt, sitting in one spot and waiting for something to come by??? I am not a patient person, maybe that is why I have to make long shots and shoot at running game...