Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting How smart are old bull elk ?

The last couple of years I've had the pleasure of watching and hunting some really nice, old bull elk. I was fortunate enough to do this both before and after the season opened. What really impressed me was how well they dealt with hunter pressure, including mine.
I'll give you an example. During the 2011 season, I watched two herds, one in particular, that held two old, four year class plus, six point plus bulls. This was before the season. Watched them for a week. Evem watched them move to within 300 yds of me when they spotted a wolf above them about a 1/2-3/4ths of a mile out.
They were always there, every morning. I stayed close to a mile from them and was often in the open. I'd get up and change position sometimes. They didn't care.
But when the season opened, they were not to be seen by anybody. Even by the guys that walked in their area in the dark. Seems they saw nothing wrong with walking up the ridge line with their headlamps on.
Second example. Watched another bunch with four big bulls in it for a week and a half before the 2012 season. Yet when the season opened, nobody got a shot. One guy walked into their favorite spot in the rain and darkness. Another headlamp user.
I saw two of those bulls move right around and past us. Just turning around slowly, to trying to setup for a shot at 600 yds., they picked up on my movement. Not enough to spook them, however.
They kept looking over their shoulders. After they left, and this was just after sunrise, three hunters appeared where they were watching, several hundred yards out. They knew just where to go and how fast they had to move.
Later in the season, I watched a guy on a stand up higher, near where these bulls would go into the timber. He'd been there most of the morning I later learned from his buddy. He saw nothing. An hour and a half after he left, at 2:00 PM, they came out to feed, not 300 yds. from where he sat. How's that for nerve and smarts ?
I wonder if I'll ever get a real chance at one of these very impressive animals. Of those that get taken, the vast majority seem to be taken in wilderness areas where they are more numerous, or on private land. I suspect they don't have as much experience with hunters either.
Have good friend that claims that some of the old bucks in his area, a very large desert area, are so good they are literally unhuntable. I suspect a few old bull elk are that good too. E

I still can't figure how you were caked with bulls these last two seasons and didn't get a shot off, let alone hunt a full day.

For years I have been trying to tell guys that when the elk hear back packers, horse packers, people setting up camp, pounding stakes,cutting poles, etc, moving in right before the season,the elk line out and leave.Then these same guys camp right in the middle of prime elk habitat and wonder where the elk go. Same thing, they then procede to walk around in the timber with the pretense of "scouting". What elk may be left from the previous noise of the packers, leave also. Add acouple of ATV's to the equations and you end up with a camping trip instead of a hunting trip. Guaranteed this will have repsonses from guys that say they see elk right around camp, etc, butvthatis theexceptionto therule

Where hunter pressure is low, this isn't as common, especially on private land where elk come in contact with landowners working the land more.

Any bull that lives to be 3 yrs old gets educated real fast.One big educator is these guys that persist on calling bulls in and then the bull either bust them or the guys decides that bull isn't big enough and spooks the bull on purpose.
Those bull stick that info away in the recesses of thier brain and use it the next time they hear a bugle.

Gotta remember it's life and death to them and just a game to hunters.

You don't get old by being stupid. Human, or animal.

That just doesn't seem true to me. Thousands of bulls are killed every year in Montana and loaded whole in the back of a pickup off of public land. Is it easy to find and kill a bull in those easy to access areas, no. But it's a numbers game, and the elk that live in those spots get killed. You're giving them too much credit.

+1

This^^, tips off just about any animal making them less likely to be seen.

I hunted Wyoming unit 39, 4 years ago on an limited entry "any bull tag". Was there 4 days early, did all of my scouting from a distance. Saw at least 100 different elk every day. Located several nice 6 point bulls and a couple in the 300+ class. Two days before the opener the rest of the hunters started showing up. Apparently the general deer season, and a cow elk permit hunt and my hunt all opened the same day. In one good sized drainage I had been watching there were two herds and well over 100 elk. The evening before the opener 4 guys, on horses, rode into the center of the drainage and set up camp.I was a mile away from them and could hear them laughing and carrying on. The next morning I started in off of the road at 4 am, walking on a trail I had scouted, in the partial moon night. I needed to get in a mile to locate on a small bluff overlooking the side I was on. Three seperate guys "ran" past me to get in ahead of me. It didn't matter the elk had already moved down towards private land. I did get a nice raghorn 3 days later however.

I Colorado at least and in OTC units especially, you hunt elk by trying to figure out what they are doing because of the other hunters.

For somebody with so much "self proclaimed knowledge" of all things guns and hunting, it appears E comes up short in the hunting experience department. Doing is different than reading E!!!

They are good, but not perfect. Play the wind, stay out of sight, and they can be had.

Yes, preseason scouting can certainly screw stuff up. Two seasons ago in Wyoming, a gentleman stopped by our camp with the observation that he had covered near 100 square miles on his 4-wheeler 2 days preseason and seen around 60 or 70 elk. He was 9 days into the season and couldn't come up with one. Even owned up that he had been well behind the road closure barriers.

Generally they are where you aren't. Even if you know they are there, they more likely than not, end up behind you. JMHO
Plan, plan and re-plan and they are where you were the day or days before. But, we hunt heavy timber because everybody we talk to wants to be on a ridge spotting.

No expert here by any means as I have only been elk hunting once. However, my advisor(ie: a local hunter) for that hunt told me to get somewhere good and stay put. It was opening day and his reasoning was the locals would be out road hunting and would keep them stirred up. I would just have to wait for one to come by. He was right. On the second day, I killed a small 5X5.

He may not be the huge trophy anyone would dream of but, he was an elk and that was my goal on the first hunt.

By the way, he won me the pot for the biggest bull(only bull) killed in our camp. Everyone else had shots and a couple took cows with their General tag.

In conclusion, I say you are right. Figure out what everone else is doing and compensate for it.

They are smart enough to find private ground where there is less hunting pressure. If there was no private ground to save some elk, the hunting would not be as good. Why else would everyone hunt the boundaries of the big ranches so much?

While bowhunting some years ago, my partner and I spotted a bull bedded down in a 1/2 acre patch of brush out in the middle of a large open area. We spotted him from the top of a ridge. We made a 1 mile loop to get down wind, then sneaked in and set up to call. My partner was sweet lips while I was on weapons duty. We must have called for an hour before we decided that he'd winded or spotted us and left while we were getting there. Wrong. I moved and he took off. He'd been bedded within 100 yds of us the whole time.

YUP

I have learned a lot by spending 3 or 4 days scouting right after elk season is over.

E hunt escape routes. First time the local elk herd hears the symphony of diesels clatting, horse trailers groaning , car and truck doors slamming they are packed and ready to go elsewhere.

On the ELK IQ question. I have seen more big bulls in archery,muzzleloader and rifle seasons then I have seen the equivalent WD buck during a season and I have spent more time hunting WD deer on a 100:1 ratio at the minimum.

First of all, RL, I have stayed out all day many times. And did so last season.
But more important, nobody else got any of those bulls either. E

There is huge difference between old bulls and the younger ones. I personally know several guys that have killed young bulls close enough to roads to load them whole. I know no one who has done it on public land with a 4 yr. old plus bull. E