Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Altitude and Elk

Last year we found lots of elk literally in the back yards in Ketchum, ID. I got mine 3 miles up the road on top of a 2000' ridge. They are where they want to be at any given time.

Learning to be mobile has made a big difference in the success rate for my group. Go where the elk are. If you are not seeing them you are in the wrong place.

The other thing that has helped its staying in the field longer. When I hunted opening weekend, sometimes Monday and on rare occasion Tuesday, getting elk was less frequent than now, when I pretty much hunt the full season.

If seeing a lot of elk means seeing a lot of cows and younger bulls, that's great - if you are after cows or younger bulls.

But if you are after older bulls and it is not the rut, does an abundance of cows, calves, young bulls tell you much about older, mature bulls?

My experience is limited so I'm just looking for other opinions.

Brent after the rut those old bulls pretty much find a place to hole up and stay there until the snow drives them out or someone finds him and kills him or harasses him enough he goes to another hidey spot.
There will still be the occasional real good bull with the cows, but the old experienced monarchs will be off by themselves.

Those will be the ones I'll be hunting this fall. But following my normal elk-hunting history, I'll probably end up killing a youngster. But I won't be seduced by large numbers of younger bulls and cows if I can help it.

Tiz always better to eat spike , than to have another fully intact license in the scrap book

Not always actually. But we will see how it all turns out in the end. In the meantime, I have some elk load development I want to do.

In Southern CO they are pretty much at all elevations. I've run into real nice bulls from 7,500' (lowest point where I'm hunting) to well over 10k. The common theme is that it is in thick timber where I find them. I see these videos of guys shooting bulls in open fields during rifle season and I can only think that must be private land or something. I don't even see fresh sign of them entering open terrain with any reqularity on the public land I hunt on. I watched some cows and two real small bulls enter a field last season in an attempt to travel across and I could hear the herd bull bugling in the woods. He finally stuck his nose into the field for about 10 seconds and then ran back into the woods screaming. He skirted around the field staying in the woods and the small herd cut back into the woods to rejoin with him and then they continued on their merry way. I had already shot mine, which was too bad, he was a real solid 6x6.

In October, I will be hunting the second rifle season in CO for the third time. The first two years, my hunting buddy and I have not been successful. We have hunted higher and lower elevations and pretty much everything in between. Hopefully this year, our luck will change. Hey, we are deer hunters from OK. We are hunting the West Elk Mountains from a drop camp at around 10,000 ft in elevation. We will be on our own for a week with only minimum guidance from our outfitter on the day he drops us off at the camp. He indicated that 2 hunters got decent bulls from the camp last year. While we hope for success, regardless, it will be an adventure. Can't wait!

Did some archery hunts in south central near the divide the past few years. Didn't take long to figure out if elk were in the area or not. Tried a couple "high remote" places and found more boot prints than elk sign. Moved a few miles down the road and found a little group of elk less than a mile from a main road. Poked around in there for a few days and got some cows and a small bull close, but couldn't get them in bow range. That was early archery. The last weekend after muzzleloader, same elk were in the same place. I think the little hole was so close to the main road it went overlooked. There were about 4 waller's, fresh tracks, and the smell of the big critters. I never closed the deal, but it was fun trying. Never really blew them out either.

Last year my buddy arrowed his 360" bull right at 11,000 feet in southern Colorado.

We camped at 8500' and found elk at 10,000' and up.