Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting I've never been elk hunting.

Go now. Go in your twenties, before you get too serious about your job or a woman. Pretty soon, there will be lots of competing pressures for your time and, especially when a good woman and kids come along, you'll have more things you want to do than you'll have time to do them. Go now.

Come to the wrong place for the veto, buddy😉
Have fun!

Assuming you have the time this Fall, just go. Don’t wait until next year. You have the time to be reasonably prepared for this season. You won’t be fully prepared either way so you might as well start the learning curve sooner rather than later. The doubts and uncertainties won’t be any less a year from now. The only way to move beyond that is to go and gain some experience.
Elk hunting is really only as hard as you make it. You’re years of whitetail hunting will serve you well. You already know how to hunt and take care of a downed animal. That and camping are the skills you need. There is one thing, well a few actually, that stand out with elk hunting. One is the vastness of the area. That is very different than hunting out east. It is daunting to look over miles of rugged terrain and wonder where amongst that vast expanse the elk may be. A few trips, and getting to know an area will ease that feeling. The second, and one that has not gone away for me, is the ‘holy [bleep]’ moment when standing next to a downed elk, miles from the truck, knife in hand. Just start cutting and bagging... eventually you’ll have 225-250lbs of boned out meat back at the truck and immense sense of satisfaction.
There are others here with much more experience than I at elk hunting and they can offer great advice. I got back into elk hunting later in life and clearly recall having many questions and doubts. What I can say is that no amount of planning or thinking about it will completely answer all the questions in your mind. The only cure for the doubts is to go. You’ll figure it out.
So, with that, have you picked a unit, identified some areas you’d like to cover and a few places to park the truck?

I've picked a unit, based on some stats I found on HuntScore and some other resources, as well as geographical proximity. South Central Colorado on the New Mexico border, southern part of San Juan National Forest. About a 24 hour drive. That will be fun as well, figure me and a buddy will drive in shifts. I'm sure we'll sleep plenty given once the sun goes down and we've eaten and made camp we'll be out. in the next couple of weeks I'll hone in on parking areas. The idea is to find an area where we can hike and be atleast 5 miles from a road. Maybe not camp that far out, but be able to hunt that far.

As an easterner who walked up on a raghorn 5x5 bull, all I can say is they are BIG. Based on the average Alabama whitetail size, that's about the back leg of an elk in weight.

They are MONSTERS when you first walk up on one. be ready to know how to deal with that! It ain't coming out like an eastern whitetail. Mine, I was lucky enough in Idaho to drop it 20 yards from where we could get the truck, it still to two of us, an ATV and a winch to get it into the trailer.

[quote=WAMWe bust it on every hunt like it might be our last since both of us are in our 60’s. Happy Trails [/quote]

No reason to quit.I'll be 75 this August and I'm still hunting. I drew a ML cow tag for this September

Good luck Vince. I got a bull tag. I can only hope I'm still at it at 75.

Don't think you have to walk in 5 miles from the road. I've killed elk very close to an interstate in an area that people drove by. My mistake was carrying the head and horns out. I popped out in the middle of a line of cars held back for road construction. Next year there were boot prints all over the mountain and it was never any good again. Don't let anyone know!

i needed to read this today fellas. I'll be 37 next week with a wife and a 3 year old and 1.5 year old. No time like the present. Don't have the vac for this season but I'm shooting for next year. Probably have to go it alone, no buddies wanna do it. Had a few offers from guys in Idaho and NM that if I draw a tag, they would help anyway they can. Gonna do some research and apply for next season. An animal would just be a bonus.

This, more than you know. Deer have a tiny home range compared to elk. In my very limited experience, a successful elk hunter needs to be ready to cover a LOT more ground than a deer hunter. A deer hunter can often find deer by moving to the other end of a particular valley but the elk hunter might have to move 2-3 valleys to find elk.

Look for elk, but more importantly, look for elk sign. Keep moving if you don't see it.

Physical preparation is critical. Get a pack frame and start carrying heavy loads on it. If that frame isn't comfortable, get another one. Keep trying until you find one that is comfortable. Also, start running. Elk live at much higher altitude than you do, and improving your cardiovascular capacity will be a massive ace in the hole when the time comes. Humping the hills is still gonna suck, but your risk of altitude sickness drops off somewhat if you're in superb physical condition. Take a look at some of the threads in the Backpack Hunting forum here--those guys are serious about being in shape.

Finally, I grew up in Oklahoma but I spent a lot of time in the mountains when I was in the Army. Probably the most important thing to bear in mind is that the mountains don't care about you. You'll be a long way from help. It may sound like overkill, but learn mountain first aid and take the gear you need to handle typical mountain problems (shock, altitude sickness, hypothermia, broken legs/ankles) plus the gear you need to communicate with someone who might have to come rescue you. Sometimes things go really bad in the hills. You and your buddy need to be able to keep each other alive until help gets there.


Okie John

Good advice Okie. I would add that if you're seeing elk sign but no elk, keep moving. They move around d a lot.

Don't wait. Go now. You might be dead or paralyzed by next year.

We have them around us up in Central Texas. Way bigger than anything else. Bulls are horse size.

Remember, killing elk is easy.

It’s the pack out that will kill you.



I killed this bull last November in the draw behind the ridge in the background. I still hurt.





P

No way anyone could kill THAT with a puny 7mm-08 ...

( Let the fun begin !! )

Tom

I've taken at least 15-20. Most when I was younger, Last one was 2007. I've taken most with a muzzle loader. Some with a Ruger M77r .30-06. Have not been since. Son was my hunting partner. He died in 2009. Have not been since.

Get out and go ! You'll never regret it.

Well, no wonder. The horns are poking ya in the back of the head.

This one argued with the Mighty-08 too, but not for long.








P

As has been stated before, elk do not behave like deer. I'm a fairly new elk hunter myself, and I learned the hard way not to hunt elk like I had hunted deer all my life. My vote is to go this year. A bad week in the woods is better than the very best days at work. 😛

Yep. I was thinking of turning in my tag this year because I might not be up to hunting like I want to, due to a surgery I'm still recovering from.

Then I came to my senses and said **** that. If nothing else I'll get in some good fishing on small streams, and hear some bugles at night by the campfire, tumbler in hand...