Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Novice Question about Cow Elk habits

As best as I can recall, I’ve killed 8 elk the last 15 seasons, 3 of which were cows. All Colorado rifle hunts, so that would be 53% beating the averages. Lucky for the freezer my son got elk some of my tag soup years or I got a deer. None of my elk were trophy class, either. Happy Trails

I have freezer room for a cow elk, that's all.

out of elk meat too ! dang it !

You hunt behind a high fence and closed gate too? I know elk slayer does, he said it himself.

my advice is pick an area/unit and spend at least a week scouting it this summer. Get in great hiking shape. Be prepared to move if you're not seeing elk and or fresh sign. ID escape routes etc. No substitutes for a lot of time in elk country.

Elk don't always follow the rules. The last week of Nov last year we were hunting a wintering area. The elk had moved in the week before and there were some herds of hundreds. I got my cow that was out wandering around with only a solo bull, well away from any others that we could see.

Ask a novice question, you get an answer from a novice, me. I used to draw a branch antler bull tag in Desolation Unit in Central Oregon embarassingly often. On many occasions in November, I experienced very close, archery close, encounters with small groups of 8 to 10 cows,calves and spikes shortly after shooting light when they appeared to be traveling from feeding areas, almost always a burn or clearcut...headed, I guess, to bedding areas, usually steep, dark, rocky heavily timbered canyon slopes. One thing that seems to be irresistable to elk in the Cascades...is freshly fallen timber, they really go after the mosses on the bark and limbs on larch and lodgepole. On two occasions, groups of elk actually split around me to pass, within 25 yards, lead cow would stop and stare holes in me for almost a minute (that is a long time when you are locked up) and the proceed by me, after she passed the younger ones would relax enough to snatch a morsel as they worked by me. I was dressed as a novice should be, bright blue Filson coat, blue double front logger denims and a Christmassy colored stocking cap. Walnut rifle, gloss scope....but it didn't seem to spook the elk. Of course, I was locked up like the Statue of Liberty, barely breathing. I'm kinda glad now that I experienced that thrill without pulling a trigger, not so much at the time, with kids to feed.