Narrowing Down Areas Within a Unit

[cohunter14]

In another thread, Sickforit23 asked the following so I figured we would start a new topic on it. Some great questions here:


In all my research of units and over the past couple years i've had good luck picking out units that we've been able to see a lot of elk in but once i get to the unit that i like, i have a hard time figuring out the proper tactics to narrow down specific hunt areas within those units.

What strategies or tactics (do you focus mostly on finding north facing slopes, drainages, changes in elevation or specific topography?) do you guys use to narrow down specific areas within a unit and how many different areas do you usually have picked out in a unit? I've heard some guys say 5, some say 10, i've even heard some say upwards of 15?

If this helps, i'm an archery hunter so i am only trying to pinpoint areas that look like good archery areas.

 

[Rzrbac]

Yeah I would like to know this too. Spots I?ve found on GE haven?t really produced what I would have hoped for. Seems like elk are such random critters, much different than WTs.

 

[nclonghunter]

Is this question addresses in the University of Elk hunting?

Not sure if doable, can we pick a place and do a study or teaching on this subject? Maybe a high draw GMU in Colorado or another state. That way it is not likely to step on someones regular hunting ground. Maybe even a big private ranch property that no one hunts. Just an idea folks. If not feasible then thats okay!

 

[cohunter14]

Alright, here's a hypothetical for you. Here's a map of an area with roads drawn in with blue lines. Private land is outlined in orange down to the bottom left and the northern border of the unit is in red. We are zoomed out a bit, so there is a scale in the bottom right to show you measurements.

Let's make the assumption that this is half of the unit and the rest of the unit, which is down across the road to the south east, looks very similar. Let's also assume that you are going into this area blind with no prior scouting. You'll arrive on a Friday at noon and hunt beginning Saturday morning for seven days.

How would you approach this area? What spots would you want to focus on? How would you prioritize hunting those spots, i.e. A, B, C, etc? How many spots would you have in this half of the unit? Where would you hope to find a camping spot?

If you want to mark the map up to show your thoughts, you can right click on the image, click 'save as' and save it to your computer. Then right click on the icon for it wherever you save it, and click 'open with paint'. When you are done, save it and then attach it back here.

Once we go through this hypothetical, we can narrow it down and try to focus on some specific areas as well.

P.S. this is all private land in real life  ;-)

 

[nclonghunter]

Hey cohunter14, just curious if you have put feet on this area to see if anyone's ideas have any merit ?

 

[cohunter14]

I have not unfortunately. But it can still be a good learning experience for everyone, especially if we get a few seasoned vets to throw in their two cents.

 

[nclonghunter]

Without looking at a satellite view, this is what I am seeing. There is a potential for wallows about half way up the mountain in several places. I am guessing that the lower white area is cleared pasture or possible agricultural areas. If north is up and elk like to bed on the north exposures then they would need to cross over onto national forest. If any hunt pressure is there then I suspect they may stay on the south side but near a western slope where they are not boxed in. Just my thoughts on what I see. The yellow line would be the route for a day hunt which puts me above the elk and on the ridge for bugling both sides of the mountain. That would be the starting plan. If more elk are heard or found on the northern side then another plan would be made.
Whats your thoughts on this folks?

 

[cohunter14]

Keep in mind the scale of the map. There?s a guide in the bottom right that shows you distances. Based on your plan it looks like you plan to cover about 30 miles in your loop  ;-)

 

[nclonghunter]

LOL...didn't notice a scale. That would be a long haul at 30 miles. May need to revisit the plan A.


I am still thinking camp and moving north up that ridge line for starters. Get high and listen while calling. Do you know if the feeding area is a feeding area or something else.

 

[cohunter14]

Here's an aerial view of the area. It's zoomed out a bunch to match the topo so it might not be extremely helpful, but I think it shows that there's plenty of feeding areas within the higher ground.


As far as what you labeled as a feeding area, I'm guessing that is just grasslands down in the flats, but I've never been there before so couldn't tell you for sure. I'm sure they could use it to feed, but I'm guessing it would be more of a winter feeding area then a summer one.

 

[cohunter14]

I wanted to give some time to get let some people respond, but I'll go ahead and get things rolling. Here is how I would approach this from the zoomed out view we are looking at. I would first look at the roads - assuming the roads can all be traveled by vehicle and/or atv, that is the starting point for where the pressure is going to be. So to me, I quickly see four general areas I would want to focus on (yellow stars). These give me places to get off of the road a ways and escape 90% or more of the pressure in the area. From here, I would zoom in to these general areas and look for a number of different things:
1) Glassing locations - where can I cover ground with my eyes
2) Potential feeding areas - are there a lot of open areas for them to feed or just a few?
3) Potential bedding areas - in a generally south-sloping area like this, how many decent sized north-facing slopes are there? Are there any good benches on these?
4) Water - is there an abundance of water or very little?
5) Saddles or other pinch points - is there anywhere like this that would cause elk to want to use a specific area to travel from one area to another.


After marking up my map with these, I personally try to come up with a travel route for myself. How can I make a loop through the area to cover as much ground as possible while hitting key areas. If I can do this from a high point glassing, that's option A for me. If not, I want to swing through and hit as many target areas as possible. With these four locations, I easily have four 1/2 day hunts and could probably double that by making two loops in each of those general areas. The key is to find the elk. If I make a loop through one area and don't see any elk or fresh sign, I move on to the next one and keep going until I do.


By the way, the red stars would be potential camp locations I would want to look at. Something that's in a general area providing easy access to as many of these points as possible while also allowing me to access the other half of the unit.


This is just my two cents. How would you all differ your plan from this one?

 

[cohunter14]

Bumping this back up. Surely there are other ways to go about this. Would love to hear how some of the real elk slayers would handle this scenario!

 

[cnelk]

I missed this thread - I was hog hunting


My Take:
Whenever there is public land in the vicinity of your hunting area, you HAVE to factor that in where/how you going to hunt the area.
Believe me, the elk know exactly where that fence is

IMO - Elk will travel to/from bedding quite a ways, but not more then 2+ miles. Thats just too far each and every day. They will alternate feeding and bedding areas and keep rotating / adjusting to hunting pressure

 

[KBar70]

Really helpful critique of a non-specific 'specific' spot; I'm all for worked examples [nearly every episode of Land of the Free should be viewed with the University of Elk Hunting to hand for reference, especially the Wyoming episodes....Corey, Dirk, Donnie  ]

Now I am not the most tech-savvy of individuals, and I tried to post my own map with spots marked without success; but...I was really pleased to see the four areas marked with yellow stars match my own.

I guess I have learnt from the UEH...yet to hunt elk, but my theory is on point!!