Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Can Elk Count ?

Based on several other threads, it is obvious that elk are "smart enough" to make themselves scarce when hunters plod thru their territory, and then re-appear in the same place after the threat has passed.

One tactic that has worked for me in the past with White tails is to have multiple people "still hunt" thru an area. At some agreed point, one person quietly takes a stand while the others keep on going. On several occasions, the pressured white tails have quietly circled around and returned within in an hour after the perceived threat (still hunting hunters) have moved on.

Would this scenario work with elk as well ? Provided that the elk are really just hiding out in the thick cover and not blown out into the next drainage or mountain range ?

I believe there may be a military term for this tactic as well. But I can not recall it at the moment...

Heck no, elk can't count...haven't you every seen "Jeremiah Johnson"...:)

[Jeremiah and Bear Claw hunt elk]
Jeremiah Johnson: Wind's right, but he'll just run soon as we step out of these trees.

Bear Claw Chris Lapp: Trick to it. Step out on this side of your horse.

Jeremiah Johnson: What if he sees our feet?

Bear Claw Chris Lapp: Elk don't know how many feet a horse has! No, you durn fool, slide it up over the saddle.

When elk leave, they don't come back right away. I have occasionally had them return to an area in the next day or so, and I have also had them never come back during a five-day hunt. Hunting pressure will cause them to move back into an area where they feel safe, but if you spook them out of it a second time, you need to start looking for them someplace else.

Works on coyotes. I've had the wife let me out of the offside of the rig when a coyote leaves an obvious food source and takes cover. Get bedded down with the rifle, and as soon as she drives away, they come trotting back out looking over their shoulder at the rig. Boom, and the rest is history.

With crows and a blind, one starts with a dummy posted in the blind. Six people come in, take down the dummy, and 4 leave. Then three come in and 4 leave. Next, 5 return and 2 depart. Last, 3 come in and 4 leave. Then one starts the calling and shooting. Crows are smart, but they can't do calculus.

In the distant past we used to roust blacktail deer with 3 individuals walking the same trail and attempting to stay about 150 to 200 yards apart. Often the lead man was one who had tagged out and was unarmed. Within a half mile or so, one of the following gunners would catch a buck doing the end around.

I have seen pronghorn and mule deer hide from approaching rigs or 4-wheelers and subsequently venture back out after their passing. I've not had a similar glassing opportunity on elk though.

On elk though... I've watched elk that we jumped in Idaho's Hells Canyon country. A herd will take off, climb horrid slopes, and disappear over the horizon. The really big bull will start on the same route and maybe turn off in the first of second side drainage. In those instances, it looks like they simply can't haul a body that's near twice that of cow, up those steep slopes. They simply just poop out.

Yes, I call it the fishhook. Works on timbered up elk very well.

A lot of testing has been done with crows and the concensus is that they definitly can count. How high? 3, 7, 9, 16 are all some of the results given. I suspect it depends on the particular crow's math aptitude.

I don't think the still hunting idea will give you the results you want. Old bulls have been known to keep their cool and not panic but most other elk won't chance it and will slip away.

Thats just what you want to happen, younger bulls will bust out, older bulls often hook around you, its fun trying to catch them in the act, cuz they do it often.

Alamosa:
Yes, I've read several articles in the past on crows and ravens, and they score fairly high in intellect. For instance, a bit of food at the end of a string and draped over a clothes line. Many species are smart enough to pull the line, but cease when the morsel begins to move away. Crows realize they are making a gain and will stick with it.

I seldom hunt the same area two days in a row. I have tracked elk that I jumped in the morning, all day long and never see them again. I have also jumped a few that did circle and come back to the same spot. Its hard to tell what one will do. When we hunt in pairs, one hunter stays in the timber about 1/3 the way down in a canyon or draw. The other stays on the ridgeline. It works sometimes, its worth trying.

Oh! the answer to your queston is "no", they are not crows!!

Elk do not seem to have any prefernce as to where they are, as long as food or wate is available. Once spooked they may travel a mile or ten miles,the find a safe area and stay there until pushed again. They do seem to have some memoery of where safe havens are, particularly leaving public land and moving to nonhuntable private land.

I have worked bulls in a small areas as long as they have not winded me. However, once busted,they leave and I have not ever seen any actually retuned to a sepcific location. I have seen herds make big circles,but mostly attribute it to hunter pressure.They never find a safe haven and keep moving ,eventually making that cirlce due to topogarphy.

A guide writing in one of the hunting publications a few months back wrote that during the early season when calling elk, the herd/harem will move out if they don't get visual/olfactory confirmation that what was there was in fact an elk.

The reason this mattered to him was that if they intended to return to that spot again the following day, elk needed confirmation, i.e, they were smart enough not to let the question go unanswered.

This guide said that if they planned to return, before they left they would actually break cover from a distance behind a full size decoy to satisfy the elk's concerns (sounds incredibly dangerous to me).

His take is that they are definitly keeping track.
On a personal observation, I have not found them persistent at returning to a location unless there was alfalfa involved (or a bull with a proven good hideout). Most other cover/pasture/water they have been willing to abandon for a few days under even slight pressure.

Paul at Elknut Productions says that elk have a vocabulary that includes a sound that the elk make that says for the caller (another elk) to show themselves. If that does not happen ,the elk leaves.
Goes along withwhat Casey says.

O.K. consensus leaning toward once they leave, they are generally gone for a few days unless an older bull has a really good hidey hole... Thanks for the input guys...

Followed some fresh coyote tracks in the snow one day, sure I'd have coyotes in my sights before long. They got into some timber and next thing I new they wwere headed back the way they had come.

Over a mile chasing them, never did see them even though they ended up in open country where I first picked up the tracks.

Had a nice morning nevertheless. Never had anything like that happen with elk. Once they get going they seem to keep going.

The only time I've seen an elk circle back is when a calf gets separated from a group. On a windy day in southern Wyoming, I was hunting green timber and put the sneak on a small group of cows. I heard then as I entered the deep green, but the ind was wrong. So, I left and circled way around and came back into the timber from a 45 degree angle and slowly made my way to within about 50 yards. I watched the group of 6 cows and 2 calves for about 10 minutes until a solo cow moved into an opening. I busted her and she dropped where she stood. The rest of the group scattered.

I gave her about 5 minutes to expire and then walked up carefully. She was down and I unloaded my rifle, took off my pack and then started to work on her. About 15-20 minutes after the shot I was standing over her and looked up and about 25 yards away a calf was just standing there. I could have busted him with my sidearm, he was so close.

My cow was dry, so it was unlikely that my cow was his momma. I think he just got separated and looped back to the last place he remembered seeing his mom.

That was the only elk I ever shot that I got out whole. We drug her about 100 yards and got close to a logging road. THAT was nice.

Sometimes, yes. Just as often, it may be a different batch of elk. If elk are in a certian spot, it may be that particular spot has the ingredients elk like, so it attracts elk.

Elk will often fishhook on you if you spook them or know they're being followed--then stand off in the timber and let a guy stealthily sneak by.....

I worked on a ATV vs pedestrian elk disturbance study in the late 90's--during the summer. Sometimes elk would return to the same spot by the next moring when we flew and located their signal. Sometimes they would be a couple drainages away.

We also tested the "3 bump rule"--if you disturbed elk 3 times via walking in on them they would permantly leave the area. It turned out it wasn't true ( and I was one who subscribed to that rule). One particular herd of 20-25 elk hiding in a 5 acre quakie grove surrounded by an broad, open valley would hardly run away even by the third time I walked up on them--but that was during the summer.

In the fall--especially if they have been shot at--it's a different story. By October, those same elk on the disturbance study were now hiding deep inside private land or down in the hellholes along the canyons.

I started following my dad elk hunting 50 years ago come next fall--elk continue to surprise me or to often prove me wrong. It's probably why I still like hunting them so much....


Casey