Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Roughest and Easiest Elk Country

Today is the only day that was forecasted for no rain all week. We had a relatively quiet night, with clear skies and little wind. Animals weren’t showing much in the first couple of areas we checked. Finally found a small pod of 7 cows that were bedded on a flat ridge facing the East sun. I couldn’t check the West portion of the ridge for more elk bedded just over the top without being busted....Will check this group Wednesday to see if horns show up.

Horrible picture of the elk resting on at the top of the ridge between the two dead pole trees.



Pictures of the areas that hold elk.



Picture is from the opposite ridge that gives me a better vantage point to glass up animals on this mountain side. It’s an elky spot where I’ve killed several bulls in the past. Finding them from here while scouting gives me a generous guessing idea where they would be opening day. We’d hike to the top, set up covering a couple areas of open spaces and hope I guessed correctly.



Here’s a view that gives a better idea of the “slope” of most of our coastal mountains we hunt...Roads you see are closed ~ Hike in only.
This might put into perspective the type of shooting distance we encounter regularly. Average is 400-450 yards, out to 700 (+) (-). As some can see you’re not really going to go springing down a steep, snag laced mountain to get yourself within 200 yards without being busted, or worse, hurt.

And I certainly don’t back up to make the shot more exciting or difficult....It is what, it is.



This is a common example of heading down a ridge to take out an animal. The reprod trees below are 60’ to 80’ ft tall for scale...I don’t know why there is often a nasty buffer of thick nastiness that you have to plunge through before you hit the cut. Not that being in a clear cut is mucho better. It’s still full of leg traps, and logging slash.



Just a walk in the park....Slash, deteriorated logs, and leg traps. Here’s your life, whether it’s scampering to something that you think will give you a solid rest to make a shot from, or again, just getting down to your meat. Make a path, cut a path... Lest not forget, you need to come back up.

In all fairness...I try to find a spot from scouting that would be a good place to set for a shot. But, it’s very likely the animals aren’t exactly where you are positioned, so you’re making haste as quietly and quickly as you can to find another position to shoot from while dealing with this type of stuff under your boot.