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Elk just have bigger territories. Many herds whether 5 or 50 will make big loops, staying in one location and feeding 2-3 days before moving on ,unless threatened.

Older mature bulls will revisit the same hidey holes after the rut. I know a few of them, but years ago, I stopped trying to get into them figuring it wasn't worth the grief. I tell some younger guys about them every once in awhile when they say they want to kill and elk no matter what.

Ditto for cows, they use the same breeding and calving grounds most years and the same migration routes to and from winter ranges, unless some dumb smuck shoots the lead cows who are more familiar with the route.

When someone unknowingly bust into a herd of elk and they go ten different directions, that is totally different than if they catch your wind or see a movement a ways off and sneak off into the timber. Get into good elk country and you will find their trails that look like cattle trails from them using the same paths over and over.

Hunt country that has little or no hunter pressure and they are fairly predictable. Hunt country with a lot of pressure, and you change your tactics to figure out how the elk respond to that and what other hunters are going to be doing


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Originally Posted by Kenneth
Originally Posted by Rock Chuck
Meat or antlers? I've shot a lot of both and on the average, the cows are more tender and better eating.


I love the flavor of Elk,

and I don't care what any one else says, All the Bulls I've eaten, were "chewey"

You want good meat? A Cow tips the odds in your favor.
During the rut in Sept, every bull bigger than a spike will be mixing it up at least a little. Even the young ones do some head butting and their version of bugling, more like a squeek. By Oct, the bigger ones have lost weight which takes a lot of time and good feed to put back on. That feed usually isn't available until the next Spring. An elk in declining condition will always be tougher than one in a good growing condition.


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Originally Posted by Ziggy
I'm not familiar with 54, all of my scouting was done in 53. All of my maps are of exact locations in 53. I've researched 53 for along time, their was not much else to do until I could finally manage the hunt. What can you tell me about 54? I picked 53 because I was given exact game crossings and started scouting from there. I took off 1wk last yr to check it out. In 54 I was givin large drainges as a starting point but the locations were not exact and required more time to scout.

Ziggy:

When you wrote "Gunnison W. Elk Wilderness" I thought you were talking about the eastern half of the West Elk Wilderness, which you would access from Gunnison. Unit 54 is a big unit and you have to break it down into smaller areas to make any sense of it. I've hunted most of it at one time or another since 1978. Last year I hunted the Pass Creek area and didn't see many elk but that was mostly because the weather was warm and dry and they were way back up high.

The western part of 54 would be accessed through Crawford and Paonia or maybe over Beckwith Pass like saddlesore mentioned.

I can't give you exact game crossings in unit 54. I agree with others who wrote that those don't work for elk because their macro patterns (annual summer/winter migrations) are predictable but their micro patterns are not. I could show you some elk trails so big that you could drive a pickup over them but predicting when they will be there again is impossible.

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Originally Posted by saddlesore
Elk just have bigger territories. Many herds whether 5 or 50 will make big loops, staying in one location and feeding 2-3 days before moving on ,unless threatened.

Older mature bulls will revisit the same hidey holes after the rut. I know a few of them, but years ago, I stopped trying to get into them figuring it wasn't worth the grief. I tell some younger guys about them every once in awhile when they say they want to kill and elk no matter what.

Ditto for cows, they use the same breeding and calving grounds most years and the same migration routes to and from winter ranges, unless some dumb smuck shoots the lead cows who are more familiar with the route.

When someone unknowingly bust into a herd of elk and they go ten different directions, that is totally different than if they catch your wind or see a movement a ways off and sneak off into the timber. Get into good elk country and you will find their trails that look like cattle trails from them using the same paths over and over.

Hunt country that has little or no hunter pressure and they are fairly predictable. Hunt country with a lot of pressure, and you change your tactics to figure out how the elk respond to that and what other hunters are going to be doing


You could sit on a whitetail trail and probably wihtin 3 days or less see a whitetail.

You, at least lets say I, could find an elk trail and sit all season and never see one due to various issues. At least IMHO.

Walked 12 miles one morning to find sign... found it, but it looked old, but only a couple of days old... walked it agian with the wife the next morning and back... to verify it was a few days old and just nothing there right then. I bet we could have hunted that portion the whole season and been SOL... instead we moved around and found them the next evening, appx 15 miles away


We can keep Larry Root and all his idiotic blabber and user names on here, but we can't get Ralph back..... Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, over....
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A year ago, we hunted high and low and never saw a track. Then one day late in the season, we had 4 or 5" of snow. By evening, the elk appeared and we saw a bunch of them. The next morning my partner and I shot 2 cows within sight of the road. We just drove through the sagebrush and loaded them up.


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Although I have the capability of riding a ten mile radius. The two areas I hunt, we ride in about 3 miles and last year killed two elk there in ML season. One opening day, one the next and the saw elk there three more days. One fellow just could not hit one. We have killed elk there every year for 5-6 years within a half mile radius. Another area, we consistently kill at least one elk in the same place every year. Last year rifle season we killed two.The same area, I have killed three elk within 200 yards of each other in different years.

A new area, I might ride those ten- twelve miles the first year or so to find the elk, but once I know the area, I very seldom move much.

In the bowl below. I killed 8 bulls in 8 years running. Most of them were within 200 yards of each kill. I don't hunt it anymore because I told a few guys about it, they went then without me, they told their buddies, who told their buddies and soon you couldn't find an elk there because all those guys didn't know how to hunt elk and ran them all out.

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That's beautiful scenery

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Originally Posted by rost495
Originally Posted by saddlesore
Elk just have bigger territories. Many herds whether 5 or 50 will make big loops, staying in one location and feeding 2-3 days before moving on ,unless threatened.

Older mature bulls will revisit the same hidey holes after the rut. I know a few of them, but years ago, I stopped trying to get into them figuring it wasn't worth the grief. I tell some younger guys about them every once in awhile when they say they want to kill and elk no matter what.

Ditto for cows, they use the same breeding and calving grounds most years and the same migration routes to and from winter ranges, unless some dumb smuck shoots the lead cows who are more familiar with the route.

When someone unknowingly bust into a herd of elk and they go ten different directions, that is totally different than if they catch your wind or see a movement a ways off and sneak off into the timber. Get into good elk country and you will find their trails that look like cattle trails from them using the same paths over and over.

Hunt country that has little or no hunter pressure and they are fairly predictable. Hunt country with a lot of pressure, and you change your tactics to figure out how the elk respond to that and what other hunters are going to be doing


You could sit on a whitetail trail and probably wihtin 3 days or less see a whitetail.

You, at least lets say I, could find an elk trail and sit all season and never see one due to various issues. At least IMHO.

Walked 12 miles one morning to find sign... found it, but it looked old, but only a couple of days old... walked it agian with the wife the next morning and back... to verify it was a few days old and just nothing there right then. I bet we could have hunted that portion the whole season and been SOL... instead we moved around and found them the next evening, appx 15 miles away


I suggest you may need to hunt elk a little more or find better elk trails.

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We hunt 3rd season in a different unit and I almost always draw for a cow and buy OTC bull tag. Like everyone else id suggest a cow tag if you can only have one but the years I've had one the other has a way of showing up, once within 40 yards of the parked truck. This year I passed a small cow opening morning and didn't get an elk. If I hadn't zigged when I should have zagged it would have been better, my hunting partner saw 5 bulls in the meadow I said that id hunt on the last day......naturally I went somewhere else...... some years are that way, some years they walk right up to you.

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Unless you specifically hunt for horns, never pass up a legal elk. Those smaller cows are sure tasty. I never begrudge myself taking the easy ones close to the truck because I have paid my dues taking the hard ones.


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Originally Posted by saddlesore
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Can you explain WHY that bowl was an elk honey hole? What drew them there year after year? What was it that made it so good? Would it be good again if it had less pressure?

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Originally Posted by DakotaDeer
Originally Posted by saddlesore
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Can you explain WHY that bowl was an elk honey hole? What drew them there year after year? What was it that made it so good? Would it be good again if it had less pressure?


Years ago, the Flat Tops in CO were the premier hunting spot in the state. Then several hunting rags started to write about it. I had hunted further east and that got over crowded, due to easier access the elk got driven out. I found this area and the sides of the bowl were covered with blow down timber where the elk stayed in. Below the rocks were aspen and good grass and trails where they moved along those meadows. No one had the gumption to climb thru that blow down ,except a few of us. We found a few game trails that we could access with our mules to get the elk out once we shot them. The few outfitters then and other hunters, moved thru this area as they all wanted to get up on top. We,from past hunting, found out that those big herds everyone seen up in the meadows, baled off the top and took up residency under the first rock shelf once bullet started to fly.

People started to notice that and the forest service let more outfitter permits for the area. Besides them and the DYI'ers ,you could not find a drainage that didn't have a camp in. Up on top, it was tent city. They camped right in the center of the elk's living rooms. They never did understand that if you did that, you had to keep a quiet camp, but still stay some distance away. No yelling, pots banging around axes chopping wood, driving tent stakes, etc. It wasn't long before the elk said the hell with that and moved again further west. I could still go in there and kill elk, if I was physically able. The guys I have told about the area, still didn't hunt it the way I explained. They never got high enough.

Yea, stop the pressure and they will find it again. But that won't happen.Hunters are too greedy and will never camp where they should. Everyone thinks that if they don't camp there, someone else will. Especially the back packers who think they have to be right there because they don't want to hike to their hunting areas every morning. You will hear some say that is BS, that they kill elk right near their camp. Yea, until they drive them out. You go into that meadow now, and you will find three-four camps there in elk season.

Last edited by saddlesore; 03/06/15.

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Thank you for the explanation.

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Originally Posted by saddlesore
Hunters are too greedy and will never camp where they should. Everyone thinks that if they don't camp there, someone else will. Especially the back packers who think they have to be right there because they don't want to hike to their hunting areas every morning.


Not to generalize, but the guys who camp in the middle of where they should be hunting over where I hunt are horse and mule packers. I never understood why someone with livestock needs to get way back off the main trails.



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Correct,I should have clarified that too. I have seen horse camps in that meadow with big electric corrals set up. Finally the FS had to put signs up forbidding camping in certain locals.
In the early years, we packed in and camped down the canyon , but the last few years we hunted it, we camped down at the FS campgrounds and rode in every day 5-6 miles. Still killed elk.

What I meant was that back packers would bushwhack way up into that dark timber and setup camp right at the edge of the aspen. Effectively camping in the elk's kitchen or bedroom.

Further down the canyon, a horse camp always setup along a stream that was the crossing point for the elk from one mountain to the another, which shut that down .

There are idiots in each group,no doubt. The problem is most hunters don't give crap about other hunters and quite a few don't know how to hunt elk.

Last edited by saddlesore; 03/07/15.

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One year while deer hunting in Colorado I struck up a friendship with a group of guys from NJ. They had pulled a camper into an area I was scouting out, and I'd stop and chat/have coffee with them.

They were there to hunt elk, and had not seen one yet. I wasnt even seeing elk sign in the area they were in,and with them being first timers I decided to help them out a little.

I marked an area on the map that they should try. I had been seeing a bachelor group of bulls there, including four 6 point bulls and all would have been outstanding for the area.

I told them what time to be there (the elk were using a ridge in the mornings to come/go to the river).I was curious if they'd take my advice so I went to the area the next morning, if the guys didnt show I was going to go to town and buy myself a tag. (season hadnt opened yet)

They showed up on time, the bulls were there right on schedule.They were an excited group of guys! They said they were going to move camp closer as they were set up in the other side of the unit, good idea I thought,thought nothing of it really...

Well days later I went to see how they did on opening morning, as I pull up i see they had set up their trailer between the ridge the elk were using and the river...I could not believe what I was seeing. Needless to say, they didnt get anything.

I put them on a spot that had a group of nice bulls that had a routine,had road access that everyone else was just blowing thru, and they set up camp on it! I still cant believe it.




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Roscoe. That is typical about 80%of the hunters.


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Yep amazing the amount of hunters that set up camp near bedding areas and feeding areas. Scouting avoids this but how many bother to time to scout

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Or they come in two days before opening day and procede to "SCOUT" all thru the timber where the elk bed. They see elk, but then wonder where they went opening day


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Yup. If you kick an elk out of his bedroom, he'll next be seen 5 miles away. Some guys just can't comprehend that.


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It's not over when you lose. It's over when you quit.
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