There is a difference in scouting and finding prospective areas but not going directly into them vs stumbling around in bedding areas. calling and leaving your scent everywhere like walking around a wallow. If you screw with their living room or bed room,you screw up.
Finding areas that were clear cut, burned, wind blown down,mud slides closing the trail should be done well before season.
Long before the season begins, bull elk know every other bull in the area buy their location bugles. By bugling before season they either think it's a hunter or another bull has moved in.That bull may come into investigate or he might take his cows and leave. Make the wrong bugle or call and he will take them and leave to.
What we do, although it is by four legged critters, is we ride a few FS trails Friday before season and that pretty much tells us where the camps are. I also gives the mules a chance to smell the trails to get use to them and let us know of any blow downs that we don't want to meet going in the opening morning in the dark. We never go right into the immediate area we will be hunting. We hunted several areas 25- 30 years, some 10-15 years. If no one screwed it up, the elk will be there or move in from being pushed by other hunters. Three different areas, I can get on my mule, set him on the trail and he will go 3-4 miles with no guidance and stop at the exact tree we tied last year. This will be 1/2-3/4 a mile from where we hunt.
BTW, I have had lot of entertainment over the years from guys bringing their girlfriend's, daughter's,or wife's arena horse up Friday night and then opening morning hustling around them with lanterns headlamps, adjusting tack, figuring out how to attach a scabbard and getting the horse all spooked..
I have also watched from a ridge line with binos as DYI pack strings move into the country Thursday or Friday. Elk know what is happening and you see them sneaking over the far ridge.
It is even more entertaining when you see them halfassed packed on riding saddles and everything comes undone and a wreck ensues. All that yelling and screaming does a lot for the elk watching
Last edited by saddlesore; 09/07/22.
