Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Whitetail vs. Elk Hunting...

This discussion was started in the elk hunting advice thread. Thought Id give its own life so that maybe I can trade some of what I know for what y'all elk guys know.

Whitetails: Many of you mentioned having sat on stand deer hunting and how its not as fun, or its boring, or can be relaxing and you see how its fun but wouldnt want to all the time, or how its basically just luck and having patience to wait. Trust me I get that. It can be trying.

If some of y'all actually have places you deer hunt regularly you know this...but if you have bought hunts or hunted on invites, then you may regard sitting on stand as "hunting". The hunting part came in deciding where to put that stand. If you go on a paid hunt in Alabama or Tx for example you're driven to a stand that has either been scouted for placement, or put on a food plot planted to attract deer, or regular agricultural source of food, and in the case of TX put in close proximity to corn (which is illegal as hell here in AL, though its done). The easiest way to kill a deer is hunt the food sources, planted for deer or agriculture. The best way to kill a trophy buck is the first method, and be ready to stay on top of your in-season scouting and mindful of wind, hunting pressure, and source of does nearby for the buck.

Obviously everybody knows the best chance at a trophy buck is in the rut. Here in Alabama our rut is unique to the rest of the nation for several reasons. First, in the 60s Alabama transplanted deer from Michigan. Those deer naturally rutted in Nov. Alabama's natural rut is not until late January and in some places February which is after season. Also, much of the state is out of balance with way more does than bucks (due to an old mentality against shooting does) thus a buck has less need to stay constantly on the move in search of does, or fending off rival bucks because there is plenty of does for all. So, the end result is we have two ruts here, but because they don't have to work so hard at finding does, and the intermix of Mich and AL deer...the peak of either rut is hard to pinpoint in many areas of the state, and often you'll find signs of rutting all season long from Nov-Jan.

None of southern deer hunting requires a lot of physical effort. But true trophy hunters put in a lot of time in the woods and mental effort as well as preperation.

Tell me more about elk hunting out west? Lets say you find "the herd". Does that mean you will see the herd bull for sure? Is he always there or near? Or does that depend on time of year? Are bulls solitary? Whitetails are natrually nocturnal, and more so when pressured....what about elk?

Fooling or foiling a whitetail's nose is more than half the battle. If they smell you the jig is up. They may see you and stand there, hear you and even come to investigate, but if they smell you they are gone. How bout with elk?

Alabama Deer Season: Bow and Crossbow from Oct. 15-Jan 31, you may take one antlered or one non-antlered deer per day, or both in certain counties during the gun season. Nov. 14-Jan 31 Muzzeloaders, same limit as Bow. Nov. 19-Jan 31 Guns, one antelered deer per day, and depending on the county you hunt you may have as long as the entire season or as short as 5 days to also take one unantlered deer in addition to the antlered deer per day.

By the way, why am I not huning now while on vacation? Well, I can be in a stand within 20 minutes of leaving my office on any afternoon. And in Alabama were in whats call the December Lull or Doldrums. No rut yet, and opening week hunting pressure drove em deep in to cover and nocturnal. Hard huning now could reep benifits, but most waiting on the late rut to start. The early rut is much less pronounced than the late rut.

I have hunted whitetails in Saskatchewan,Alberta and Manitoba for over 30 years and I have hunted elk in Alberta,B.C.,Montana,and New Mexico for about 15 years.Both can be very different but they can also have a lot in common depending on the area that you are hunting.I personally find it much easier to kill a mature buck that a mature bull.I have killed many 140 to 150 bucks but only one bull over 300.Another way of judging which is more difficult is by the success rates for hunters.Almost everyone that I know that has hunted both has killed many whitetail bucks,yet their success rate for elk is very low.One group of 6 hunters that I know had never hunted either as all 6 moved out to Alberta from a province that has no whitetails or elk.In the past 5 or 6 years each of them has killed several whitetails yet they have only killed one elk between them in that time.They hunt in the same area that I do and the whitetail population is about equal to the elk population in that area.My own hunting partners have also each killed several whitetails yet only one of them has ever killed an elk.If you were to ask any of these people,they would definitely say that elk are much more difficult to kill than whitetails.Whitetails have a very good nose and good eyesight but I find that elk have a nose and eyes that are just as good.Both can be very wary,but I find elk even moreso.

"The easiest way to kill a deer is.." or "Obviously the best chance at a trophy buck is..." The best way to kill a trophy buck is.." Wow! Is that so?

I'll tell you a little that I know about elk. Pretty basic, pretty important, but I'll never say.. Obviously, or what's the easiest or best way..

Elk are herd animals. Herds typically are usually made up of cows, yearlings, and immature males. A mature bull will come to the herd during the rut, but not much outside of the rut. Rut typically is mid-Sept through Mid-Oct. If you are not hunting the rut and you are hunting for a mature bull, you don't want to be hunting any elk "herds" unless you are looking to take a cow or a dink. The mature bulls (and even younger bulls) may relocate to isolated areas a long ways from any cows. They can be either solo or either in bachelor groups. They look for places they can maintain thier body temp, eat, drink, and avoid stress. They don't always "migrate" although they may summer and winter in different areas due to the weather impacting the things I mention above, food, thermoregulation, and stress.

A mature bull can act as crafty as a whitetail when they are not rutting. They have a nose, 2 eyes and 2 ears and know how to use them. They can also cover a mile in the mountains in just minutes that will take an extremely fit man several hours to cover. They can be nocturnal, and can bed all daylong. If they can feed in the timber, they don't come out in the open.

Be prepared for the unexpected. Hunting elk on National Forest land isn't like hunting whitetails out of a treestand.

Greenhorn,

The comments I made that you picked out were general statements, but by and large, true where I hunt, but certainly not all over whitetail country except that I think any deer hunter would prefer the rut and tell you that your chance for success goes up during that time. Most any Alabama deer hunter will tell you your odds of success on Trophy bucks go up when you get away from the food plots that most peole hunt, and go way up during the rut. To say "the easiest way" or "obviously..." are in fact true statements, thought not meant to indicate that "obviously the best time to kill a trophy buck is the rut" means that is the ONLY time or way, but given my choice, I take my off time during the rut versus any other time of the season. If Im meat hunting, I will go to a food plot in the afternoon and within a day or 2 will most likely have meat, but have not seen a set of antlers, but may also get lucky...its happened on more than a few occassions.

Please don't take anything I post to mean I think that is the only way, or that I am an expert deer hunter.

The only thing I can say about deer hunting that is 100% undeniable is that THE best way to kill a deer, trophy buck, immature buck, or doe is to get your butt in the woods and spend time there.

Thanks very much for the elk info on rutting and herding. Very helpful

Elk hunting is almost always tougher than deer hunting. They travel far more, faster, and getting to them is usually far more demanding. But beyond that, there's a fair amount of similarity.

But if your area doesn't have any fresh sign, you need to move. When they are in an area, they will be there every 2-4 days for a day or two. Then they move on. They cycle through a area for quite a while before moving out for the season, but they will rarely be in the exact same spot for any length of time. Deer are there every day, even when you don't see 'em.

When a deer turns five years old it becomes an elk.

I'm a native Texan and I hunted whitetail there quite a bit many moons ago, both in the Hill Country around Fredericksburg, just north of Houston at Tomball, and in the Panhandle near Canadian. I also hunted mule deer in West Texas and harvested many a muley in the Four Corners area of both Utah and Colorado. Elk I've only hunted in the Rocky Mountain states excluding Idaho. I find absolutely no similarity in hunting any of those species. All are totally different techniques to be successful.

It also is dead on what both Tman and Greenhorn say about elk. I've observed exactly what both say, particularly about their hanging out in an area for a three days or so and moving on in the same general area, almost as though they were making a loop. Except for two large herds I saw this year which had some cows, virtually every elk I saw for 11 days was a bull and they were generally in bachelor groups of from 7 or 8, to something in the mid teens. Their behavior also changes radically depending on the rut and weather and that is totally different than deer.

Elk and whitetail do share some common traits and habits.
One thing that will be a bunch different is by the time most rifle seasons open for elk the rut will be done or nearly done and the older herd bulls will have pulled into hidey holes someplace to try and get back into condition to survive the winter, and or avoid hunting pressure.
On a real good year about 60% of elk hunters go home with the tag still attached to the license.

That would be a really good year.The average success rate in Alberta is closer to 30% and that includes cow tags.For bulls only it runs 10% to 15%.

I'm betting if you throw the spikes and raghorns out of the bull equation success rates probably drop closer to 5%.

Actually with the exception of special draws in a few select zones, spikes aren't legal here.Some zones are 3 point and some are 6 point.However the same 10% of hunters usually kill the majority of the elk year after year.Other hunters have hunted for many years and have yet to kill an elk.

We go thru the spikes no spike seasons here every so often. Most of the seasons and licenses avialable are for antlerless elk nowdays.
I have one friend that hunted 17 years before he finally got to pull the trigger, and he hunted hard, just never had a legal elk present a shot. Then one day he was in camp messing around about the 4th or 5th day and a spike came a trundling thru and the spell was broke.

Our general elk seasons are for 3 point or 6 point bulls only and in many zones cows are protected.However due to increasing elk numbers in many agricultural areas,the numbers of cow permits have increased dramatically over the last several years.On average,it takes 3 or 4 years to draw a cow tag.

General license seasons here are a hodgpog , of antlered elk , someplaces any elk , someplaces any elk for a while then antlerless, and so on.
If a person just wanted to shoot elk for meat, there's always antlerless permits left over right up to the opening day in several areas. Some areas even allow for an additional antlerless permit.

I'll throw in some of my comparative ramblings on Elk v. WT Deer. I grew up hunting WT in PA, have killed ~ 50-75 in various surrounding States. I personally find elk (CO is my only experience) to share similar behavior to our PA WT's in a couple of respects:

1. Bucks/bulls look for safe daytime areas. That may mean the thickest, nastiest cover around or it may be a secluded side ridge away from people. Based on my limited elk hunting career, I'd say bulls are much more people adverse than WT.
2. Bulls-cows and bucks-does don't mix much outside of the rut. In both situations, I look for bull/buck sign. I always want to know what the cows/does are doing, staying and eating but the bottom line is that you are hunting a much smaller population (bulls/bucks). I personally don't get too wound up in hunting the bulk of the population (does and dinks).
3. The real difference between hunting the two is simply the real estate they hang in. I followed the answers on the other thread and the common theme of the answers against the comparison was the amount of work it takes to find and kill a bull elk.

The bottom line is that you're not going to kill either a big buck or bull without some sort of scouting - whether its with a rifle in your hands or pre-season as in WT's. If you've never been out west to hunt elk on public land and especially w/o a guide, the task can be daunting. Some basic math demonstartes the point. In NWPA, there are ~ 10-20 deer per square mile. If the buck:doe ratio is 1:4, out of 20 deer only 4 will be bucks and maybe 1 will be mature. So you have 1 mature buck in 1 sq mile. That sq mile will be ~ 30% farm land, 70% woods in my part of PA. So you're looking for 1 buck in ~ 400 acres (70% of 640) with easy access to the likely food areas (fields) via spot light and/or daylight/sunset feeding times. For elk the numbers are a bit different. Numbers from a typical MT example (taken from Elk Tactics), a mountain range is 40 miles long by 20 miles wide is 800 sq miles of land. Typical population figures with a healthy elk herd is 400 animals. Assuming a 3:1 cow:bull ratio (which in my limited experience is really generous), means there are 100 bulls in the herd. Also assume 10 of these 100 are mature bulls. Simple math says their is 1 elk per 2 sq miles. Cows, calves and small bulls tend to herd together so they are not evenly spread over the mountain range. If we are concentraing on the mature bulls, we have 1 mature bull per 80 sq miles or 1 small bull per 10 sq miles. Based solely on area, the difference between finding a mature WT vs a mature bull are quantum leaps apart. The real kicker though is the terrain elk inhabit. In normal WT range, a couple of hundred feet in elevation change is about max, in elk range that gets you out of sight of your vehicle - maybe. So you're left with finding an animal that is more spread out, in terrain that is steep and high and that likes to hide in thick nasty stuff off the beaten path. The odds of killing a nice bull on your first trip into new area w/o the use of a guide service ain't very good. The key is finding a good area, and knowing how the animals use it. Simple in principle but difficult in application.

I would strongly suggest the following approach:
1. Determine which state you want to hunt
2. Which areas in that particular state you want to concentrate
3. Find several units in that area
4. Determine which season you want to hunt
5. Spend some vacation days looking over the area you selected. This may be in season with a rifle in your hands.

Assuming you have some hunting skills, 2-3 years is as soon as I'd plan on actually shooting anything. You could get lucky the first trip out - I came very close this past year when I decided to move to a new area. For example, I spent most of 2003 and 2004 looking for areas in Colorado, narrowed it to a single area, researched the CODOW website for kill stats, selected several units, spent parts of two western trips scouting the area, actually hunted it in 2005. I saw 50+ elk, 5 bulls - 2 big bulls but could not quite seal the deal due mostly to my elk "rookieness". In short, I made some rookie mistakes that cost me an elk on 2 separate occasions. The 2 big bulls still haunt me because I thought they were too far to shoot, in hindsight (and later with range finder in hand....) they were 300 yards - give or take a few. Bottom line, elk are much more work due mainly to the terrain and population density that WT's. If you are willing to work, they can be had on public land w/o using a guide. I think that was the jist of all the seemingly disparaging comments. Having gone through this process, I can say elk hunting is much tougher. Speaking of CO, I'd avoid the hotel/campground type hunt due to my other favorite elk tendency of running for miles after signiifcant human contact. Hunting out of a hotel/campground guarantees you won't be alone.

bwinters,

Excellent post. I'm still on the order of four years from my first serious Elk hunt (other than chasing a few when I was stationed in WA State) and info like this will at least keep me aware of what I'm getting into.

Allen

I grew up in Elk country here in B.C. and got to observe them over the long haul. Shot my first decent bull at 17 [more an accident than good planning!] Have shot a fair number of Elk since that day in 1962, both antlered and antlerless. I feel that a Bull Elk outside of the rut is a very good challenge to hunt. During the rut, they can lose some of their wariness, but if pushed hard, they will become almost entirely nocturnal, making tracks what you see most of. The fact that Elk is sooo delicious makes me keep going on hunts for them, and I do see quite a few on most hunts, but have become accustomed to figuring out their movements. I consider them the ultimate North American Big Game for all round difficulty to be successful on a regular basis. Regards, Eagleye.

bwinters,

Thanks,

Thats kinda what I got from the posts here. There are those die-hard elk men who will find any reason to say elk are superior to whitetail, and they're entitled to their opinion. I can't refute it because like I said I've never hunted elk.

The general theme seems to be if you have an inkling about WHERE to hunt, then putting in the hours afeild, and being willing to hunt where the masses are not willing will help your chances of success. The differences in WT and Elk in that respect is only the amount of sweat and energy required to get where the elk are. And that is something that takes little smarts or experience to do, just willingness and physical ability.

"The differences in WT and Elk in that respect is only the amount of sweat and energy required to get where the elk are. And that is something that takes little smarts or experience to do, just willingness and physical ability. "

Although I'm sure some guys depend on dumb luck, I would think smarts and experience would be a hunter's best advantage, regardless of the animal.

I think he is just talking about getting to where the elk live. Now I'm not the smartest guy in the world and my experience pales besides many members here but just strolling ignorantly up into the mountains is a good way to put a serious hurt on yourself.

Jeff