As I've said before, you'd be hard pressed to find a worse elk hunter on the fire, but here is how I'd do an out of area late season cow hunt.
The first thing I'd do is contact the area biologist. This will save you DAYS of floundering around in the field. These guys want to see elk harvested, so he will be your friend.
When you get to an area the biologist has suggested, try to see where the elk are feeding, where they are bedding and what time day and night they are moving. If there is lots of hunting pressure, you might just have to pick a saddle and wait for an elk to run past you.
If there is not a lot of pressure, position youself where you can intercept them between bedding and feeding. The feeding area could be a crop field, a windswept side hill. PAY ATTENTION TO THE PREVAILING WIND.
Even in bitter cold, I have seen elk back into timber as the sun comes if there is some hunting pressure. The first hour of the day is golden.
In my smattering of experience, it seems as though the biggest challenge in elk hunting is to get where there are elk. Once you get near elk, they don't seem as difficult to hunt as a whitetail or even a mule deer buck. They are big, easier to see because they are often in herds, don't bolt as quickly as a deer and move enough so that if you are around them, sometimes you can just sit and let them come to you.
Straight from the World's Worst Elk hunter
