Listen to Brad on this. There are 100 different ridges you can sit on in your region that will not have elk on them. Elk are not like deer, they are not dispersed randomly. Elk are either there or not. If you choose to randomly sit on hills and watch a pond you would do better to each sit on a different ridge in a location with good visibility and spread out because you would have a better chance at finding elk. In my humble opinion you would do better to find elk first and hunt where they are. You can find them by finding good glassing spots and looking at the right times of the day--mid day will rarely be useful--and hunt where you see elk. You can also bend some boot leather and look for sign. You are in the right area when it has glossy poo, freshly turned up ground, and stinks. If those factors are not there you are not where elk live and you will not reliably kill elk at that location.
To be clear, I'm not saying you cannot all three kill big bulls from those spots you picked. I'm saying that without knowledge that elk live there it would be randomly lucky to do so. If you want any sort of reliability you must hunt where you know elk to be and not just where you hope they could be.
