Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Can anyone recommend Elk hunting books?

Hoping someone can recommend a good book on elk hunting practices; specifically in Colorado if possible. I want to read up on how the animal behaves, and how most successful hunters pursue.

Thanks

Well they started as a plains animal, then we have through the years pushed them to wear there at. Now it is our turn, look and see there aint no giveme. Kawi

What Kawi said

OOp,s forgot $$ That if possible is a golden. If not go there or ask but that is a rather large state!>>> nearow it down.

kawi's back on the stuff.

I really like Wayne van Zwoll's elk hunting and shooting books and articles. He has published a couple of very good books on elk hunting. The earlier one is best,but may be out of print. The newer is basically a copy of the older.

I can PM you with a list after dive onto the hunting library downstairs.

+1 on van Zwoll.

I also found the Elk Hunting University series of articles on the Colorado Dept of Wildlife website to be very useful, and in fact was rarely able to find elk until I started using some of the things I learned there there.

For example, elk will only feed on grass while it is still green. If you're on the dry side of the mountain walking through dry, dessicated grass you are unlikely to find many elk feeding in the area. Between the dark timber and areas where grass is still green .. much better odds.

Also good discussion of benches, funnels, etc. -- at least from what I recall.

And its all free.

A lil knowledge is a beautiful thing.

Elk and Elk Hunting - Wayne Van Zwoll
Elk Country - Valerius Geist

To Heck with Elk Hunting by Jim Zumbo was hilarious and a great read.

Thanks for the quick responses, I will certainly take a look at the reading materials you all have advised.

Alamosa got the ones I was thinking of. van Zwoll's ""Elk and Elk Hunting" was preceded several years before by "Elk Rifles, Cartridges and Hunting Tactics", which is a much better tome and better written, I think.

A couple from the North American Hunting Club are worth a look. "All About Elk" is a collection of long articles or short stories from several authors and gives a few interesting perspectives from various hunting techniques. "The Hunter's Book of the Elk" was written by our own JB and is his typically fun and interesting read. The photography in this book is equally spectacular.

I've read lots of others with lesser take away. Most have nuggets of useful info.

Enjoy.

Mike Eastman's book is also a good one.

Just about right but..

As a hunter with lots of experience deer hunting in widely different habitats, some pronghorn experience and some knowledge of bighorn sheep, I assumed elk hunting wouldn't be all that hard to understand and do.
Barsness's book, "The Hunter's Book of the Elk," pointed out to me some fundamental information I didn't understand. Without that, I'd have little chance of getting anywhere near some nice bulls. E

Thanks!

One of the things pointed out in my book is the story about elk originally being plains animals, but being pushed into the mountains, is a myth.

Elk are very adaptable animals, and when Europeans first came to North America existed from northern Mexico to the Eastern seaboad to the West Coast and all across Canada where there was sufficient timber for cover. In fact about the only place the DIDN'T live in what's now the Lower 48 states was along the Gulf Coast. Instead of being purely plains animals, elk lived anywhere there was a reasonably decent mix of grass and timber.

One of the main reasons for the plains-only elk myth was the Lewis and Clark Expedition. By the time they headed out in 1804 most of the elk east of the Mississipi River had been killed off, but the expedition saw (and ate) plenty of elk on their way across the western plains.

When they crossed the mountains, however, they didn't see any--or many deer, for that matter. This was because they crossed on the main Indian trail to the buffalo plains, and the elk along the Lolo Trail had either been killed off by Indian hunters, or avoided the area along the trail because most of the grass had been eaten off by Indian horses.

They did, however, kill and eat a lot of elk during the winter they spent on the West Coast, far from any sort of plains. There are also numerous historical accounts of elk in the high Rockies in the early 1800's.

The main reason they were found almost entirely in the Rocky Mountains by the last half of the 1800's was they'd been killed off everywhere else, not because they were "driven" there.

The Complete book of Elk hunting by Sam Curtis.I think it is a very good book.

The Elk of North America written by Olaus J. Murie (ISBN: 0-933160-02) published by Teton Bookshop, is the definitive scientific work on the North American Elk. Olaus Murie was the chief scientist at the National Elk Refuge in Jackson Hole. He is so well respected that the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation names their annual award for scientific and elk conservation excellence after him.

It is not a hunting book. All of the conclusions in the book are based upon sound scientific research, which is clearly explained in the book. Lots of old wives tales are debunked in the process. i.e., If you want to know what they eat look in the book. He examined the stomachs of hundreds of elk, counted and listed the contents then made statistic calculations, to arrive at the answer to that question. He examined the log book and diaries of many early explorers (Lewis & Clark, Zebulon Pike, Long, etc.) of the plains and Rocky Mountains to answer the question regarding wether or not they were originally plains animals.

KC

"The Elk Hunter" By Don Laubach and Mark Henckel is a good one.

'Bugling for Elk - A Complete Guide to Early-Season Elk Hunting' by Dwight Schuh

'Radical Elk Huntng Strategies: Secrets of Calling Elk in Close' by Mike Lapinski

'High-Pressure Elk Hunting: Secrets of Hunting Educated Elk' by Mike Lapinski