Letting Elk Expire

[cohunter14]

We have all heard different rules for how long to let an elk go before beginning the tracking process. I have personally helped track an elk for someone and we ended up bumping the elk from her bed and never ended up recovering her. So, I have multiple questions for you on this:

1) How long do you give an elk before tracking when you feel you have made a good shot?
2) How long do you give an elk before tracking when you feel you have made a marginal or bad shot?
3) Are you willing to leave an elk overnight if you made a marginal shot later in the day?
3a) If you are willing to leave it, do you worry about meat spoilage? Why or why not?

I have heard many opinions on leaving elk overnight and the possibility of meat spoiling. Curious to see what everyone\'s thoughts are and if we have some folks with real life experience to share their outcome.

 

[elky McElkerson]

i go 1-hour no matter what..

unless we see it drop.

if it was a bad shot, over night. unless rain is coming, or it is warm enough to rot the meat.

so far so good. the hour has been enough in my hunt history.

 

[cohunter14]

if it was a bad shot, over night. unless rain is coming, or it is warm enough to rot the meat.

Cliff, what do you consider \'warm enough\'? And what changes if rain is coming?

 

[iccyman001]

For a good shot, assuming I double lunged or or a known heart shot, then I am waiting 30 minutes minimum.

Liver shot/kidneys I am waiting a minimum of 4 hours

Single lung I am waiting 4-6 hours.


I haven\'t had an overnight lay yet, but I BELIEVE that I won\'t let it lay overnight. I\'ll probably go back to camp, eat dinner, relax and then reattack.


This does however have a lot of variables.
How many people are with me?
Is the elk down in dangerous terrain where me going in with a flashlight is unsafe?
Etc


If heat is an issue and it\'s been sitting then I am gutting and camping that thing ASAP in hopes to cool it down.

 

[cnelk]

1 hour unless you see / hear them fall.

Otherwise, If they are dead in 5 minutes, they will still be dead in an hour

 

[Deertick]

If they are dead in 5 minutes, they will still be dead in an hour

That\'s my thinking entirely.

I generally am a 45-minute guy. A dead elk won\'t be going anywhere, and neither will I. Sit down, eat a little, get a drink. Now is not the time to hurry.

 

[VTHOKEE]

If I\'m in an area where I can walk back to my truck shed some unneeded gear before taking up the blood trail that\'s my first option. It usually kills 20-30 mins. If I know it\'s good shot placement and I find the blood right away then after that 30 mins I\'m tracking. If I feel it was a marginal hit I\'m marking the start of the blood trail and backing out for a few hours and then coming back later with hopefully help. I have let a deer lay over night and turned out fine but it was also in November vs early September elk season.

 

[cohunter14]

So for all of you who mention the 30-60 minutes, let me throw a scenario at you...you shoot an elk with five minutes of legal shooting light left. You think the hit was okay, but it might have been just a bit back of where you wanted. The temps have been a little warm with highs in the upper 70\'s during the day and lows in the lower 40\'s at night. What\'s your plan now?

 

[bowhunter]

So for all of you who mention the 30-60 minutes, let me throw a scenario at you...you shoot an elk with five minutes of legal shooting light left. You think the hit was okay, but it might have been just a bit back of where you wanted. The temps have been a little warm with highs in the upper 70\'s during the day and lows in the lower 40\'s at night. What\'s your plan now?

If it was just a bit back add an hour. If it was close to more than a bit and you are really unsure. Give it 4 hours and move sloooooowly and quiet on the search. If you know it was not in the liver more guts. WAIT 8 hours. I gut shot a deer once. Watched it walk off. Waited 4 hours then moved slowly. Found it 1/2 mile away still alive and alert. Backed out. I saw it by light by its eyes glowing at 8 hours in the same spot. Backed out. Went back the next morning and it was GONE. Never found it no matter how much I looked.

 

[bowhunter]

I have had liver shots drop in 40 yards and have tracked them 1.5 miles then lost the trail.

I have never lost a deer or elk that had the lungs deflated.

 

[WW]

So for all of you who mention the 30-60 minutes, let me throw a scenario at you...you shoot an elk with five minutes of legal shooting light left. You think the hit was okay, but it might have been just a bit back of where you wanted. The temps have been a little warm with highs in the upper 70\'s during the day and lows in the lower 40\'s at night. What\'s your plan now?

Under those circumstances, I\'m thinking a 4-6 hour wait. I\'d head back to camp, the truck, or home and pick up my Coleman lantern and a spray bottle of hydrogen peroxide. No way would I let an elk lay over night. I\'ve seen them spoil on the bottom side that was laying on snow even. Besides, blood shines up very well with a gas lantern and tracking at night isn\'t as hard as many may think. If you have doubts if a spot is blood or not, a little spray of peroxide will make it bubble up, regardless of how old it is.

One advantage to finding your elk after dark is, there are no blow flies or meat bees to contend with. :upthumb:

 

[elky McElkerson]

if it was a bad shot, over night. unless rain is coming, or it is warm enough to rot the meat.

Cliff, what do you consider \'warm enough\'? And what changes if rain is coming?

I was thinking early deer archery. Really. 90 deg days. Deer will rot

And rain destroys a blood trail.


Sent via Jedi mind trick.

 

[VTHOKEE]

So for all of you who mention the 30-60 minutes, let me throw a scenario at you...you shoot an elk with five minutes of legal shooting light left. You think the hit was okay, but it might have been just a bit back of where you wanted. The temps have been a little warm with highs in the upper 70\'s during the day and lows in the lower 40\'s at night. What\'s your plan now?

If this is the scenario I will walk over to the spot where the animal was standing and mark it with flagging tape. I would still back out about an hour before even coming back. If I feel like the shot is marginal I will still comeback after that hour and look at the initial spot for blood. Depending on what kind of sign I see depends on how quickly I move after that. This year I shot a cow and thought I hit her too far fwd, went to the spot she was standing when I shot her it had probably been about 45 mins and found no blood. There was a small finger of woods maybe 10yds wide that split the two fields, looked there, no blood, no arrow nothing, walked the 10yd strip of woods popped out on the other side and dang if she wasnt laying down dead as a door nail. No blood trail and she was probably dead before I even got up out of my make shift ground blind. On the flip side I double lunged a deer and had a blood trail that was the kind you dream about when bow hunting. Gave that deer about 2hrs between walking back to the truck, waiting on my uncle and then walking back to where the shot was taken. I thought for sure he maybe went 50-75yds we ended up finding him over 400yds away. When I gutted him we looked and both lungs were center punched. We both couldn\'t believe how far he went. Every animal is different but unless its dipping down into the low 30\'s upper 20\'s I\'m not leaving one laying over night. There is no use trying to sleep because my excitement isn\'t going to allow me to sleep.

 

[Stringunner]

We fall into the 45-60 minute camp unless we see it go down. Haven\'t had to wait overnight except on a buck I shot two years ago. Shot it at last light, waited 45 minutes then started tracking. Lost the blood trail. Temps in the mid 30s that night. Came back at first light and found it 60 yards from where I left it the night before. No meat was lost.

 

[Wapiti7]

One night hunting in the Gila taught me to be very careful shooting at last light. My buddy and I killed bulls about 20 minutes apart (he shot the herd bull and I shot a satellite) though we didn\'t know it at the time. Highs were in mid to high 70s, lows in mid 50\'s. He swore he made a good shot, and I knew my first shot was high and wasn\'t sure on follow up shot (hard quartering away at distance). We met up and gave some time, maybe an hour. We figured we would find his, clean it up then go look for mine. Maybe I\'m a terrible blood tracker or didn\'t have enough light, but tracking in the dark is hard for me. We slowly stayed on the trail until we jumped his bull and by the sound of the way he tore down the mountain, he sounded like there was plenty of life left in him. We decided to leave him and pick it up in the AM. Figuring we gave mine some more time, we went back to where I shot mine and had hell tracking it, oak leaves suck and there was a little drizzle (just a little). After a couple hours we gave up on him too and figured we\'d split up and look for both in the AM. The next morning two of us found mine pretty early, died on a NW facing slope a little after 8 (couldn\'t have been 100 yards from where we gave up the trail). The other other two found his on a S facing slope about 2 hours after mine. Turns out we were wrong, his shot was terrible and my original shot wasn\'t as high as I thought and my follow up shot sealed his fate pretty quick. We lost most of the meat off my mine and all of his was fine. Two different butchers wouldn\'t cut mine up. Think his elk lived through most of the night and mine died shortly after he was shot.

 

[bowhunter]

One night hunting in the Gila taught me to be very careful shooting at last light. My buddy and I killed bulls about 20 minutes apart (he shot the herd bull and I shot a satellite) though we didn\'t know it at the time. Highs were in mid to high 70s, lows in mid 50\'s. He swore he made a good shot, and I knew my first shot was high and wasn\'t sure on follow up shot (hard quartering away at distance). We met up and gave some time, maybe an hour. We figured we would find his, clean it up then go look for mine. Maybe I\'m a terrible blood tracker or didn\'t have enough light, but tracking in the dark is hard for me. We slowly stayed on the trail until we jumped his bull and by the sound of the way he tore down the mountain, he sounded like there was plenty of life left in him. We decided to leave him and pick it up in the AM. Figuring we gave mine some more time, we went back to where I shot mine and had hell tracking it, oak leaves suck and there was a little drizzle (just a little). After a couple hours we gave up on him too and figured we\'d split up and look for both in the AM. The next morning two of us found mine pretty early, died on a NW facing slope a little after 8 (couldn\'t have been 100 yards from where we gave up the trail). The other other two found his on a S facing slope about 2 hours after mine. Turns out we were wrong, his shot was terrible and my original shot wasn\'t as high as I thought and my follow up shot sealed his fate pretty quick. We lost most of the meat off my mine and all of his was fine. Two different butchers wouldn\'t cut mine up. Think his elk lived through most of the night and mine died shortly after he was shot.

They don\'t start to go bad till they die. If a bad shot animal lives most of the night and you find it first light it hasn\'t been dead long and the evening temps are cooler resulting in no spoilage. That is a perfect example. Thanks for sharing.

 

[iccyman001]

One night hunting in the Gila taught me to be very careful shooting at last light. My buddy and I killed bulls about 20 minutes apart (he shot the herd bull and I shot a satellite) though we didn\'t know it at the time. Highs were in mid to high 70s, lows in mid 50\'s. He swore he made a good shot, and I knew my first shot was high and wasn\'t sure on follow up shot (hard quartering away at distance). We met up and gave some time, maybe an hour. We figured we would find his, clean it up then go look for mine. Maybe I\'m a terrible blood tracker or didn\'t have enough light, but tracking in the dark is hard for me. We slowly stayed on the trail until we jumped his bull and by the sound of the way he tore down the mountain, he sounded like there was plenty of life left in him. We decided to leave him and pick it up in the AM. Figuring we gave mine some more time, we went back to where I shot mine and had hell tracking it, oak leaves suck and there was a little drizzle (just a little). After a couple hours we gave up on him too and figured we\'d split up and look for both in the AM. The next morning two of us found mine pretty early, died on a NW facing slope a little after 8 (couldn\'t have been 100 yards from where we gave up the trail). The other other two found his on a S facing slope about 2 hours after mine. Turns out we were wrong, his shot was terrible and my original shot wasn\'t as high as I thought and my follow up shot sealed his fate pretty quick. We lost most of the meat off my mine and all of his was fine. Two different butchers wouldn\'t cut mine up. Think his elk lived through most of the night and mine died shortly after he was shot.

It\'s a shame you weren\'t able to get the meat, but great on you for firing that follow up shot when you didn\'t think it was enough.
16.....A? B? C? D? E?

 

[F M]

They don\'t start to go bad till they die. If a bad shot animal lives most of the night and you find it first light it hasn\'t been dead long and the evening temps are cooler resulting in no spoilage. That is a perfect example. Thanks

This is what happened with my bull two years ago. I didn\'t have a good blood trail because of where the arrow came out so I backed out till morning. I started looking again at day break and did not find him till 10:00 and the meat was just fine. The over night temp was around 40.

I\'m in the wait a hour group on a known good hit.

 

[cohunter14]

I\'ve never had meat go bad, so this may be a silly question, but how do you know it\'s bad? Wapiti Jeff, could you tell it was bad or did the butcher have to tell you? Just curious since I typically process my own...

 

[F M]

I had a deer go bad on me when I didn\'t find it till the next morning and it had a vary rank odor to the meat. I have saw on elk around the ball on the hinds that have a off color to the meat and a smell to it.