If you are hunting public land, forget about watching meadows etc. Very few elk will come into them after opening day, or even then.
I must see martians when I look out the window of my cabin in unit 67 and see elk feeding in the medows durring hunting season in the mornings and late afternoon... <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />
Don't know where you plan on hunting, but if you can't find an elk or 12 while glassing from a vantage point, I'd say you're either looking through the wrong end of your bino's or blind. There are plenty of elk in that unit, not behind every bush, but out of the last 4 years of owning a cabin in 67 and spending quite a few days up there, I can't think of a single time that I went up there and didn't see at least one elk per day. Most of the time it was close to a dozen. The 'famine' times are the summer and early fall. One day we saw about 80 out feeding in the middle of the day during 4th season...
Get away from the roads and kill yourselves some elk.
Good luck and I hope the weather is condusive to elk hunting. 1st season can be tough, after the rut, but before the winter 'migration' to lower ground. I would hunt as high as I could climb on the mountain, and like others said hit the north slopes. The elk will have thier winter coats on and if its hot out they won't want to move around much, and will avoid the sun like the plague.
