Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Roughest and Easiest Elk Country

Today is the only day that was forecasted for no rain all week. We had a relatively quiet night, with clear skies and little wind. Animals weren’t showing much in the first couple of areas we checked. Finally found a small pod of 7 cows that were bedded on a flat ridge facing the East sun. I couldn’t check the West portion of the ridge for more elk bedded just over the top without being busted....Will check this group Wednesday to see if horns show up.

Horrible picture of the elk resting on at the top of the ridge between the two dead pole trees.



Pictures of the areas that hold elk.



Picture is from the opposite ridge that gives me a better vantage point to glass up animals on this mountain side. It’s an elky spot where I’ve killed several bulls in the past. Finding them from here while scouting gives me a generous guessing idea where they would be opening day. We’d hike to the top, set up covering a couple areas of open spaces and hope I guessed correctly.



Here’s a view that gives a better idea of the “slope” of most of our coastal mountains we hunt...Roads you see are closed ~ Hike in only.
This might put into perspective the type of shooting distance we encounter regularly. Average is 400-450 yards, out to 700 (+) (-). As some can see you’re not really going to go springing down a steep, snag laced mountain to get yourself within 200 yards without being busted, or worse, hurt.

And I certainly don’t back up to make the shot more exciting or difficult....It is what, it is.



This is a common example of heading down a ridge to take out an animal. The reprod trees below are 60’ to 80’ ft tall for scale...I don’t know why there is often a nasty buffer of thick nastiness that you have to plunge through before you hit the cut. Not that being in a clear cut is mucho better. It’s still full of leg traps, and logging slash.



Just a walk in the park....Slash, deteriorated logs, and leg traps. Here’s your life, whether it’s scampering to something that you think will give you a solid rest to make a shot from, or again, just getting down to your meat. Make a path, cut a path... Lest not forget, you need to come back up.

In all fairness...I try to find a spot from scouting that would be a good place to set for a shot. But, it’s very likely the animals aren’t exactly where you are positioned, so you’re making haste as quietly and quickly as you can to find another position to shoot from while dealing with this type of stuff under your boot.

Easiest I have seen was was in Idaho on a farm owned by my family. Called a cow out of the cornfield and a youth hunter shot it. Took longer to go back and get the tractor to haul it back to the barn…

Some of you boys have done some amazing studly stuff. My hat is off to you.

That ground cover is some crazy stuff beav’.

I've hunted and shot elk in north Idaho, south west Idaho, Utah, and New Mexico. North Idaho was the toughest

Rough stuff there Beav. Congrats on having success in that.

I hunt deer on the Oregon side of Hells Canyon. It's hellaciously steep in the canyon itself, but the rims on top are much more reasonable.

I've seen elk very high in the mountains, such as not far below the summit of Fremont Peak in the Wind Rivers. Fremont Peak is 13,751 feet high and lower down (we were camped in Titcomb Basin) the mosquitos were ferocious, so the elk went up to escape the bugs. This was in July and we were climbing, not hunting.

West side of the Olympic Range of mountains is the toughest place to hunt elk IME. Terrible hunter success percentage. Tough on humans and gear.

I have hunted or helped others hunt elk in B.C.’s East and West Kootenays, Fraser Canyon, Toad River and Tuchodi areas, Blue Mtns. and Cascades of WA, two areas of Idaho including the Seven Devils country of Hell’s Canyon, plus explored some great elk country in New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado--- and none of those compares with the sheer misery and difficulty of the western Olympic Peninsula. Steep, wet, thick, thorny at times, almost no clearcuts in the areas we hunt, and the vegetation is too thick to glass anywhere but a clearcut.

Tracking animals in the wet moss and wood debris ground is extremely difficult. We followed a faint blood trail for 8 ½ hours and about a mile, and in that entire distance saw exactly two hoof prints: One in the moss of an old road he crossed and the other in a mound of mole dirt.

A good elk hunter from Utah was astounded at how hard it was to even find an elk here.

Opening days of elk season last weekend it sleeted almost non-stop for three days, never below freezing but building up three inches deep at times, while always melting, with violent wind and hard rain at times. Forecast calls for 3 inches of rain tomorrow. Our toughest pack out was 2400 vertical feet with rain at the bottom and snow above, no trail of any kind, sopping wet brush.

Very hard. A sane person would hunt elk somewhere else.

Easiest: East Kootenays in B.C. 40 years ago.

SLM,
Yesterday I found some horns in this group...This spot always plays hell on my nerves. Making the shot from the mountain side that I’m glassing from to the side where the elk are, is the easiest part. Depending on the elks position on the mountain ~ they’re in the 600-700 yard range. The extraction is just gonna be brutal. Without access from the bottom to work my way up to the elk, and then take them back down to the bottom and out.....It’s straight down from the top, then back up. You’re looking at 1800’ft of down and back up suck ! Because of it’s difficulty. This spot becomes Plan C.





I got on some more elk this morning at first light in an area that is doable. I didn’t get a picture since it was first light and I just backed myself out of the area as soon as I spotted the herd. Hour hike up, located animals within 15 minutes and shot back down the mountain. Got my Plan A for opening day. Hope the elk cooperate.

I received a weather warning update from the Sheriffs Dept this afternoon. Heavy rain and flooding through Saturday morning is expected. The rain just started dumping buckets as I’m posting this. Yeehaw !

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I have heard the West Olympic Range in WA, is an absolute ass-kicker.

Embrace The Suck is the only thing one can do....Or, hunt somewhere else. Laffin.

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Tinycock, would thrive in the Oregon and Washington Coastal range...He’s just that stubborn.

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I have to agree with the gnarly terrain of the Olympic peninsula. Was able to hunt that when stationed at Ft. Lewis! A buddy and I got stuck in this huge freaking prehistoric looking swamp with moving ground. Our compass went boggy! We were very thankful to dump out on a logging road right before dark!

Good stuff beav’.

Get the Speedo dug out and the floaties aired up.

Tiny would appreciate some Speedo pics.

Bulls down....More to come



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There's that much poon in the coastal range huh?? I thrive wherever the wimminz are, because I am a classy SOB and treat the bitches with RESPECT.

SEXY SOB!!!, even with the Sitka hat.

It goes well with his skin tone.

My hunting pard and I started heading up the mountain at 4:45AM to where I’d spotted a herd with bulls days earlier. It was a dry hike, which was nice after 3 days of non-stop rain and wind. I couldn’t have asked for a better morning to catch elk out eating after the weather broke for opening day.

We started glassing right before shooting light into the clear cuts and surrounding edges of timber. I didn’t see anything that looked like a log in the distance move ~ needing a little more light that 15 minutes would bring. I waited while thinking about my dad and the missing chain I’ve worn around my neck since he passed away 9 years ago that held a small stainless capsule with some of his ash.

In a freak situation where friends from out of town had stopped by for dinner, when they left, I noticed hours later that my chain was missing from the coat rack hook I would hang the chain on at night. Wifey and I searched the house for dad, but he didn’t turn up...A call was made to our friends to see if by accident they had grabbed the chain when they took their coats. No answer, as they had a 3 hour drive home with spotty cell service.

Feeling more than a smidge bummed that I’d lost dad the night before elk season. I finally had to come to terms that it was bound to happen at some point ~ maybe now was the time to let the old guy go; keeping only a memory of him and our years together hunting and fishing might be the path forward.

While waiting for better light, my hunting partner split off from me to check a different area. As the light crept into my binoculars, I spotted a round shape that disappeared in my glass. There’s one ! A focused Beav started tearing apart the small area with my bins looking for another large shape to move ~ saw another one move. Cool, I’m on them. I hit the range button on my Zeiss bins and got a 630 yard reading to their general area...

I took off down the Cat road, looking get to a higher position. Since the elk were feeding on the side of a dense clear cut, I figured I could easily close some of the gap by climbing up a small knob hill to look for a place to set up and launch a 180 grain Accubond. I found a spot to climb up, only hoping that at the top I would find an unobstructed opening, free of small trees and saplings that would interfere with my shooting path.

At the top I found a great spot, flat, with a wide opening and a log that gave some ground elevation for using my pack as a shooting bag. I got elk in my bins, that I ranged at 400 ish yards, dope on my scope is dialed, rifle set and ready, I’m looking for elk heads to lift, giving me some headgear to shoot...Then this happens. A strong wind kicks up and rolls the mountain side in fog. 22 minutes of 15 MPH wind and socked in, thick fog, covering all the elk ~ Come on Man !




Continued....

You’re killing me Smalls…

Been there. Done that.

Frustrating is an adequate adjective, preceeded by the F word. It actually happened with the sheep I got this year, though the fog also allowed me to cross an open area without being seen.

On the edge of my seat here...