If You See Elk At Last Light...

[cohunter14]

If you see elk at last light coming out and feeding, how often do you find that they are in the same area the next morning? Obviously, the moon can have some effect on this, but I'm curious what you all have experienced.

 

[Ilelkhntr]

Same general area, unless someone blows them out.

 

[sjl2012]

I think that depends on the time of the year and the size/makeup of the group. If it's during the rut and there are multiple bulls in the herd I've seen them 5 miles away the next afternoon when we finally caught up to them. They were bugling like crazy in the evening then the next morning not a sound so we set out looking.

If it's late October and a couple of elk they may be standing in that exact spot the next morning. I say that and last year on a late season cow hunt there were 300 elk in a group that didn't move 500 yards in 3 days on private.

Generally when undisturbed by man or animals they're close.

 

[cohunter14]

Generally when undisturbed by man or animals they're close.

This has been my experience for the most part. The reason I asked was I had it happen multiple times this year, both during archery and rifle season. During archery, we had a bull going at last light multiple times. We'd show back up in the morning, and he was nowhere to be found. This was in the same spot, too.

During rifle, we glassed up some cows the night before the opener. Put a plan in place to be there at first light and, although we were a few minutes late due to terrain issues getting in, they were nowhere to be found. And I'm talking 15 minutes late, not an hour.

It just made me rethink what to do in these scenarios. Obviously, you don't want to leave elk to find elk, but it felt like we committed to these spots each time and, when we got there and didn't find elk, it felt like we wasted our morning. I've had it work out in the past where we get back on elk in the morning, but it seems like more and more this has happened to me.

 

[ribo451]

I guess I would chalk that up to bad luck. If I saw elk at last light I would be right back there in the morning.

I was on a ridge that had elk sign all over it. As I was working my way up it I heard a wolf howl further up the drainage. A couple minutes later there was a stampede of elk going downhill on my right away from the howl. I went back the next day and a couple more days throughout the season and those elk didn’t come back at all over the next 6 weeks I hunted in there.

They have such a big home range they can move 2 drainages over and still be home I guess.