Daybreak to Dark

[Swede]

From daybreak to dark how do you spend your typical elk hunting day?

I snooze a little then leave my truck as soon as I can see adequately in the timber without using a flashlight.
I stay in my stand until about 11:30 AM, then get out.
I return to camp nearby (normal) or have lunch at the truck.
At about 2:30-3:00 I head back to my stand and wait almost nearly dark.
That is my most common use of time. This accounts for 75% of my daylight time on a 30 day hunt.

On occasion I call in the morning or if it is raining I may stay on the ground all day.
Sometimes I will set up, late AM or early PM, and call will a small lonesome bull sound when I can get well away from where my tree stand is. On some mornings I will go somewhere and call for awhile before I go to my stand.

Unless there is a need to go to town and do laundry and restock supplies, I am out hunting all except for 2-3 hours mid day. Even if I go to town I can get in 8 hours of hunting. Over the years it has been my observation that there is a strong correlation between time in the forest and elk on the ground. Hunting success is 80% dogged determination.

 

[cohunter14]

My plans can change on any given day, but the one constant is that I will be in a chosen location at shooting light. From there, sometimes I will stay out all day and have my lunch with me and sometimes I will go back to camp for lunch and a quick nap. The evening plans are the same, varying from day to day based on what my plan is for that day. Most times, my plan is decided the night before based on what has or hasn\'t happened so far.

 

[Stringunner]

I stay in my stand until about 11:30 AM, then get out.
I return to camp nearby (normal) or have lunch at the truck.
At about 2:30-3:00 I head back to my stand and wait almost nearly dark.

I sleep in, hit the trail around 11, climb into Swede\'s stand from 11:30 till 2 then head back to camp. :dance2:

 

[cohunter14]

I sleep in, hit the trail around 11, climb into Swede\'s stand from 11:30 till 2 then head back to camp. :dance2:

Now THAT is funny!!!! :haha: No wonder Swede didn\'t see many elk this year!

 

[cnelk]

Funny stuff Stringunner!
Sounds like something I would do

I do about the exact same as Swede. But there are times I leave the truck 2 hours before daylight to get into an area.
Sometimes stay the day, other times head out and hunt another area for the evening

We try to plan a trip to town after 4-5 days of hunting

 

[OldMan]

I\'m going to give out a secret to hunting bedding areas. Of course you have to know where they are, and that takes a ton of work before the hunt starts. That can\'t be put in just a post, but would be a small book.

The hunt itself is really easy. You simple get into the bedding area while they\'re out feeding. I\'m sure you can figure out the rest. I\'ve never seen anybody say they do this, and it seems so simple I don\'t understand why?

Of course this is not still hunting, but ambush, and i\'ll only do it at the end of a hunt season when I haven\'t got anything by still hunting. Sort of my ace in the hole.

So, to answer the question. That would be one kind of hunting day for me. Get into the bedding area at early dark. Then spend the rest of the day hauling out meat.

 

[elkmtngear]

Typical day I am up and walking way before daylight, since most of the pockets I am hunting are around 1 1/2 to 2 miles in (and straight down).

If I can get to a bugling bull in the early AM, it\'s a good day. If not, I will start low in the dark timber, and slowly work my way up toward the ridgetop by mid-day...moving slowly and looking, listening, and smelling for elk. If it\'s uneventful and quiet that day, I may take a nap around 1 PM.

Evenings are most often time for ambush, either treestanding or using the SLIP blind. I\'ll get within bowrange of a major trail, keeping the wind advantage as much as possible, accounting for the thermal/ wind PM shift.

Head back to the top (camp) in the dark. If it\'s a good day, I\'ll have my daypack filled with loin, and antlers tied on. :upthumb:

I will stay on the mountain until I get it done. Took me 9 days this Season, but I usually allow myself 14 days.

 

[Swede]

Since Stringunner has taken a bull the last two years in a row and I went home without an elk, it\'s my turn to sleep in and Stringunner can warm my seat in the morning.
I have done something similar to what Still Hunter describes. Go to an edge of a bedding area, where the wind is in your favor, and give off a short one or two note bugle. Then move a few yards into a good ambush position and wait. A curious satellite bull may come to look you up. As Still Hunter alludes to there is more to hunting bedding areas than just going to a tree cover location ad setting up.
A block of timber used as a bedding area may be quite large. Just setting up nearby may not be good enough. It is valuable to know exactly where elk normally bed. That knowledge comes from earlier scouting. By going in early in the morning or the last part of a day, when the elk are gone, you can determine where they concentrate without disturbing them or running them off. The evidence of the core of the bedding area is of coarse a concentration of beds, feces, and rubs. In addition there are usually trails and scattered rub trees around the core. Often you will find the core bedding area on a bench near or break overlooking the hillside.

 

[Olympushunt]

I stay in my stand until about 11:30 AM, then get out.
I return to camp nearby (normal) or have lunch at the truck.
At about 2:30-3:00 I head back to my stand and wait almost nearly dark.

I sleep in, hit the trail around 11, climb into Swede\'s stand from 11:30 till 2 then head back to camp. :dance2:

Dang...that\'s some funny stuff right there. It actually isn\'t a terrible plan. Many times have I come back from my mid day break and found they had been there when I was gone. DOH! I think the sun changing positions on a bedded animal as the afternoon starts warming gets them up for a bit and sometimes they head for a mid day sip.

 

[Swede]

I don\'t mind Stringunner sitting in my stand, but what really hurts is to come back and find where a bull just wallowed while I was gone. To add to the pain is the thought that I have been hunting in the area 10 or 15 days, and have not had a shot at anything.

 

[Stringunner]

Many times have I come back from my mid day break and found they had been there when I was gone. DOH! I think the sun changing positions on a bedded animal as the afternoon starts warming gets them up for a bit and sometimes they head for a mid day sip.

I think there is a lot of value in this thinking. I know the topic has been discussed over and over again about what time of day elk use water holes and wallows and to be honest with all the game cam pictures I have gathered in the past several years I still am not able to decide a particularl time of day that is best. But I like what Olympushunt has written in relation to why a mid day sip may happen.

but what really hurts is to come back and find where a bull just wallowed while I was gone.

This is the exact reason my dad sits from sun up to sun down. He has far more patience than I do. My first week of hunting I am good to sit from sun up till sun down, I can hack this easily for 4 days in a row, but by day 5 I start to hunt in the same manner that Swede describes, sunup till around 11 and then again from about 2 p.m. till dark.

Swede- if you are sitting a stand that is right in the middle of a bedding area are you more easily coaxed to sit and remain all day? My fear is running them out as you leave or when returning? Green Spring is an example that I am thinking about, some years it seems that spot is right in the middle of a bedding area.

 

[Stringunner]

Since Stringunner has taken a bull the last two years in a row and I went home without an elk, it\'s my turn to sleep in and Stringunner can warm my seat in the morning.

And for the record, I would rather be helping you pack out your bull than warming your seat! :upthumb:

 

[Swede]

Stringgunner, my experience at Green Spring is that it runs hot and cold. Only about 1/3 of the years is it good, but it rarely lasts long. One year it was good for the season. Generally too many people go through there. Cattle are not the problem in that small area.
If I am close to camp, I normally go in for lunch and a break. I drop straight down into Green and Skeleton. I have been busted several times. In fact I believe I have been busted there more than anywhere else. Most of my stand locations are on the fringe of a bedding area. Those two springs are right in the middle. There is no totally safe access. I stay longer if I detect anything in the area. I don\'t get caught leaving. I mess things up when I come in.
A coupe of years ago Tim killed a 6 pt. bull that came down from the bench above Green Springs. It turned back and died on the bench just above where the stand is located. Tim had given up on the spot for the morning and was leaving early. You just can never tell. This year it was poor there, but it got hit by elk one day when I was at another stand.

 

[Swede]

I have killed about 75% of my elk in the late afternoon and evening in that hunting area. I believe based on just casual observation that midday hunting would be just as good as morning hunting except for the deer.

 

[Zpd307]

I am out on the mtn all day. I will stop to eat and snooze mid day. I get back to camp well after dark.

 

[Baby Huey]

I stay out all day as well. I take a water purifier, food, hammock, clothes and other gear needed for the day. If camped at our base camp, I will leave an hour or two before daylight to get into my hunting area. If we backpack in, then we are usually in our elk area right away and don\'t have to get up as early.