Our summer home is in the middle of Arizona's best elk country. We have elk in our yard frequently, but mostly it's in the middle of the night and we only see their tracks and scat. So far, baiting to view wildlife is still legal in our county. (We can't hunt near the cabin.)

I've tried salt and mineral blocks and "deer blocks", but so far they have ignored my offerings. Any suggestions as to what I should put out for them? Has anyone had any luck with alfalfa pellets?

Bill Quimby

Dunno about summer, but elk used to really like a potato patch a friend had on his 7-acre place in a Montana canyon.

Here in Evergreen, Colorado I can't even get the dogs to chase them out of the yard anymore so I have to do it. Five minutes later they're back. Anything green attracts them. Native mountain plants, the herb garden, poppies, the vegetable garden. Big mountain rats they are...

Just about any ornamental plant or vegetable that you really love will also be attractive to elk. I learned this the hard way when I lived up in Evergreen Meadows in Colorado twenty years ago...

Alfalfa works, I have shot elk before sunrise, on their way back up the mountain, after they had spent the night in a alfalfa field.
Good meat that was.
Not much better than alfalfa fed deer and elk.
Easy to pack out too.

+1 on a bale of alfalfa hay. Just ask any rancher who has elk in his winter pasture running his cows off their feed.

+2 on the alfalfa hay. Throw a bale of hay out there if you want to see elk. Just be careful what you wish for though!

It might not be to long before your back on the campfire asking how to get rid of the filthy things.

I'll just add that the potato patch pulled in more elk than the green alfalfa field next to it--though they liked both.

My bet (based on some experience) is that elk are more attracted to green lawns than baled alfalfa--or alfalfa pellets. The original post is about Bill's summer home in Arizona. Elk sure do hit haystacks in the winter in the northern Rockies, but that ain't what we're discussing here.

Grow potatoes for elk in AZ?

Alfalfa hay got to taste better than cactus

rose bushes

I know in the past Idaho has issued winter depredation hunt tags for Elk that are eating up Ranchers stored alfafa.

Thanks, all.

Alfalfa seems to get the majority of votes, and I intend to buy a couple of bales this week.

Problem is, we can expect to be deluged with rain during July, August and September here in Arizona's high country, some days as much as an inch in an hour.

Wouldn't that sour alfalfa quickly? Any suggestions on how to keep it dry?

As for rose bushes, our property is covered with wild rose plants, but the mule deer cropped them to ground level and are working on our aspens.

Early Arizonans grew lots of potatoes 80-100 years ago in our little valley so it could be done today, but someone else would have to do it. I'm a hunter/gatherer not a farmer.

Same applies to lawns, decorative plants and gardens. I prefer to simply watch our aspens, ponderosas and firs grow.

Bill Quimby

Molasses and oats would be my vote, or alfalfa pellets.

Molasses and oats would get my vote over baled alfalfa this time of year. You also don't have to grow the potatoes. I'd bet dumping a few pounds out on the ground for a few days might do the trick.

We have so many Abert, red and fox squirrels and cottontails (my wife feeds them) here that I suspect they'd gobble up or pack off 100 pounds of potatoes before the elk found them.

The deer blocks I set out a couple of years ago were full of molasses and oats. The squirrels and bluejays picked out the goodies, and the rest of it washed into the ground. I never saw a track or other sign of a deer or elk touching those blocks. They also ignored the salt and mineral blocks I put out.

I think I'll try putting out a couple of bales of alfalfa first, because it has a strong scent, and try to switch to pellets if the elk find it.

Bill Quimby

I'll be real interested in how everything works out.

a farmer friend of mine found a dead moose in his potato field, said he choked on one!

the dairy farm i live by used to feed them to cows, said they had a few choke on them too, they dont feed them potato's anymore!

You want to bait elk so you can view them correct? Well, get yourself a couple bales of alfalfa, honey and oates too. You open up the bales of alfalfa and flake them out some, then pour the oats over them and pour the honey over the top of the oats. Once they come in and taste this snack, you will have a hard time running them off later.

Thanks. I'll try it.

Bill Quimby

Dead of summer your going to be a little more hit and miss on trying to keep elk around, they have places to go, things to do.

Really, everything is green now, lush and elk dig it.

Elk also like to be about as hi in elevation that gives them good graze. It's cooler and fewer flies. The hotter the higher, they also go more nocturnal.

An old Elk Guide showed me a place were just the tops of grasses were eaten off, he claimed that bulls need the proteins more, and cows need more carbs, grass leaf and stem to make milk, he may be on to something?

Dead of winter, elk can and will kill horses to eat there alfalfa.

Elk tend to like burned off areas as it releases more nutrients back into the soil.
Fertilized your place well, keep things watered and lush and you will see more elk.

Water!

try canned cat food you will be surprised

They make a bale feeder. Some various versions but basically a 55 gallon barrel with the bottom out, elevated of the ground, and the bottom more or less wire mesh, IE cattle panels welded to just let the bottom stick out but the animals can pull hay out between....

It seems several of you don't realize that at least a third of Arizona is forested and that only a third of our state's terrain is "desert."

The elevation at our cabin is 8,900 feet, and the nearest cactus is at least a 2 1/2-hour drive south. Our cabin is on two acres surrounded on two sides by the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest. Our land has maybe 200 aspens, 100 big ponderosas, and a half dozen firs and two or three blue spruce.

In many ways, our high country is a lot like Colorado's. Temps may reach 70 degrees during the hottest summer days; summer nights will range from about 35 to no more than about 45 degrees. After about September 15, it will freeze every night. I have seen it snow briefly in July. We will have nine feet of it in an average winter.

Flies at our elevation aren't a problem, nor is water. The Little Colorado River is about 250 yards away, and there are at least 30 trout-stocked lakes within a 45-minute drive on the A-S national forest and the White Mountain Apache Reservation. A year-around creek runs through our place, and there is no shortage of green, riparian growth.

About 30 elk cows and calves walk across our two acre parcel at dark thirty, following the stream, to reach a 25-acre meadow across the road in front of our place. (The bulls won't begin to appear until mid August.) The herd heads back to heavy timber about 1/2 mile up the canyon above us before first light, again crossing our place.

I hope to get a few elk addicted to bait so we can see them regularly in daylight. If they hit the bait only after dark, I'll put the bait where we can see it from inside and put up a motion-sensor light.

Bill Quimby

Be waiting where they spend the day or along the route back. Be there every morning as every once in awhile they will go home late.

The elk I mentioned earlier was the same as yours bunch. In the ranchers field every night without fail, but gone well before daylight. We were there every morning as it became light enough to see and it took awhile, but we finally caught them going home late.

We had to, they spent the day on hill tops over looking the valley on private posted land that permission to hunt was impossible to get. A guy could watch them all day with binoculars, if you wanted too, but they might as well have been in another state.

Far as I know that herd is still there but just a fraction of what it was. Thank you Mr Wolf, and all the Greenie SOB's that helped it to happen, as no one even gets permission to hunt on the lower land until the herd recoups, if ever.
Even though I lived there long enough I know where I still have a very good chance of catching one where they can be shot, I don't hunt that bunch anymore. Let them recoup, hopefully.

When mother nature is providing really good groceries, it's hard to bait anything in. One has much better luck when food is limited or of poor quality. Depending on your local conditions, a water trough might be really appealing in the spring and fall.

Elk are smart though, and their decisions in most instances weigh two factors. 1) Security or the risk of predation and 2) food. When times are tough, the need for food can bring them into our back yards and they'll run some risk of predation. The alternative then is starving.

Typically though they view humans as predators, and if those predators run on a clock, they can figure that out too and come in when we are asleep.

Excessive predation risks on the range can also bring deer/elk into urban settings. With the wolves running Yellowstone now, the elk are coming into areas around the large lodges to breed and calve. Large elk concentrations out on the range will attract the wolves that typically won't venture near the lodges. Bear, however, will occasionally come to the lodges to hunt elk.

Our small community now has an urban mule deer population. In late fall and winter the draw is food and they run throughout the entire town at night. Now they are having fawns in our back yards because any coyote that comes to town gets shot. They are doing most of their foraging out in the sagebrush where everything is still green.

I use hoppes number 9 for scent attractant & 180 grain rem core lokt in .300 WBY for bait.

It's dangerous though, they come running & you have to shoot them in self defense or you'll get run over.

Well for your information I used to live there for several years and I know what the terrain is.
Fact of the matter is all animals need water!

Bill,

I would try both sweet oats and alfalfa up near Badger Pond. The elk liked the tulips on our neighborhood in the spring.

Doug~RR

If their taste buds are at all like moose, they will love cabbage.

Tom: I didn't mean to get your dander up, and I apologize. Yes, all animals need water, especially in the summer. However, there is a year-around creek that runs through my property, the Little Colorado River is 250 yards away, there is a pond a 1/4 mile away in the canyon above my place, and there are three trout lakes a mile downstream. On top of that, it rains nearly every day during spring and summer up here, and there are pools of water standing in every low place. Our local elk do not have to go far to get a drink. We want to watch elk from our windows in the daytime, but baiting them with water simply wouldn't work.

Red Rabbit: "Our" little herd hangs out in the timber around Badger Pond during the day and crosses our land to reach a meadow across the road where they spend the night along the river. I want them to spend more time on our place during daylight. Give me a call next time you head up to our village, and I'll buy lunch.

All: Thanks for the suggestions. I put out a bale of alfalfa today. If it doesn't work, I'll try molasses and oats. I'll wait a couple of weeks and let you know what happens.

Thanks again.

Bill Quimby

Plant roses--the more rare and expensive the better........

Be careful with alfalfa pellets during the growing season--it can actually make elk/deer gain too much wieght, and may be too rich for them also.

CDOW developed an alfalfa pellet specifically for mule deer to be used for winter emergnecy feeding, and all the other western states use that pellet too.--but it's different than alfalfa pellets for livestock.


Casey