I went up by myself on Friday afternoon to the International Sportsmans Expo in Denver last week. I attended Nate Zelinsky\'s Aggressive Elk seminar. Nate is a CO native and has taken 16 bulls in 17 seasons primarily in OTC units in CO. He is a professional fisherman and fishing guide (owner of Tightline Outdoors), but his true passion is elk hunting.
Although the title of the seminar would lead one to beleive that his talk would be about running, gunning, bugling aggressively to hunt elk, it was more of being aggressive in your scouting to be successful in your hunting.
He started out by telling people to learn the spot they are going to hunt. The biggest advantage is to know every nook and cranny of the unit you are hunting. Now that is easy to write down, but to actually do that you really need to scout that unit and put in the time to understand and have great knowledge of your hunting unit. Nate suggested a minimum of 60% scouting to 40% hunting, but the more scouting the better. He discussed ways to scout: 1. Boot leather in the area; 2. Maps/Google Earth; 3. Watch the climate; 4. Cameras; 5; Long Distance scouting. Nate spends over 100 days scouting, and will zero in on a few specific animals to hunt - more on that later.
1. The best way is to physically walk around your unit and get to know it.
2. Obviously everyone cannot physically get to your unit and explore, so some great tools are maps and programs like Google Earth (GE). Now I have done this for a while, but one tidbit that was a good suggestion was to find a wooded area near your home and get on GE and look at it from different angles on the computer. Then go to that place and see how what you actually see coorelates to what you see on GE. What does a dark patch of trees tell you? What does an aspen stand look like? This type of analysis will help you look at GE with a little more understanding of what areas on GE will look like in the feild.
3. When you are physically at your site, watch the climate. Have a watch and take notes on what time of the day the thermals change on different areas/drainages. Where do you notice animals going during rain, sun, cloudy weather, windy times, etc.? Gain an understanding of the climate you are hunting to add to your toolbox of knowledge. This will help you understand the area you are going to hunt. Now Nate hunts mostly archery season, so this is what his seminar was geared towards (my opinion), but you can gain knowledge for later rifle hunts as well.
4. Cameras can be used to help determine timing. When do the elk come through? Which direction are they heading? When do they go to water? When do they feed? When do they get up to feed? These questions can be answered with the use of a camera. Analyze the times when you see elk on the cameras and try to determine what the elk are doing to pattern them. Nate will go deeper and then start to pattern each elk he sees on the camera, learning each ones timing patterns.
5. Long distance scouting. Primarily this is with a spotting scope looking over a vast area from a vantage point that lets you look for miles. This long range scouting will help you find elk in drainages, meadows, etc. during different parts of the day.
Now most of this is stuff is what a lot of us do already, but Nate then takes his scouting to the next level. This was the heart of his seminar - what are you going to do to take this information to the next level? Nate will actually then identify different bulls in his unit and by using the methods above he will start to pattern these bulls in August and into the hunting season. He will gather all information he has gained and really know each bulls daily routine. Bull A usually waters around 10pm at this water hole; or bull B always heads to his bedding area at this time and so on with each bull. The time invested in scouting to this level will help you harvest select animals.
I haven\'t scouted to that detail (learning a specific bulls pattern along with knowing every nook and cranny of your unit), and sometimes wonder if you can get to that level, but it is hard to discount a guy that has had success on bulls 16 out of 17 years. Then I started to think about Pete (Still Hunter) as he has been hunting his unit for years and Pete seems to have an exceptional knowledge of his area - to the point where Pete has posted it may be too easy to harvest an elk. There is something to be said about this advice and knowing that Pete has essentially employed this intimate knowledge of knowing your unit inside and out, in order to becoming a great hunter.
Nate said he was asked what are the units he hunts or what is the best unit to hunt. He says the best unit to hunt is the one you know the most.
Although the title of the seminar would lead one to beleive that his talk would be about running, gunning, bugling aggressively to hunt elk, it was more of being aggressive in your scouting to be successful in your hunting.
He started out by telling people to learn the spot they are going to hunt. The biggest advantage is to know every nook and cranny of the unit you are hunting. Now that is easy to write down, but to actually do that you really need to scout that unit and put in the time to understand and have great knowledge of your hunting unit. Nate suggested a minimum of 60% scouting to 40% hunting, but the more scouting the better. He discussed ways to scout: 1. Boot leather in the area; 2. Maps/Google Earth; 3. Watch the climate; 4. Cameras; 5; Long Distance scouting. Nate spends over 100 days scouting, and will zero in on a few specific animals to hunt - more on that later.
1. The best way is to physically walk around your unit and get to know it.
2. Obviously everyone cannot physically get to your unit and explore, so some great tools are maps and programs like Google Earth (GE). Now I have done this for a while, but one tidbit that was a good suggestion was to find a wooded area near your home and get on GE and look at it from different angles on the computer. Then go to that place and see how what you actually see coorelates to what you see on GE. What does a dark patch of trees tell you? What does an aspen stand look like? This type of analysis will help you look at GE with a little more understanding of what areas on GE will look like in the feild.
3. When you are physically at your site, watch the climate. Have a watch and take notes on what time of the day the thermals change on different areas/drainages. Where do you notice animals going during rain, sun, cloudy weather, windy times, etc.? Gain an understanding of the climate you are hunting to add to your toolbox of knowledge. This will help you understand the area you are going to hunt. Now Nate hunts mostly archery season, so this is what his seminar was geared towards (my opinion), but you can gain knowledge for later rifle hunts as well.
4. Cameras can be used to help determine timing. When do the elk come through? Which direction are they heading? When do they go to water? When do they feed? When do they get up to feed? These questions can be answered with the use of a camera. Analyze the times when you see elk on the cameras and try to determine what the elk are doing to pattern them. Nate will go deeper and then start to pattern each elk he sees on the camera, learning each ones timing patterns.
5. Long distance scouting. Primarily this is with a spotting scope looking over a vast area from a vantage point that lets you look for miles. This long range scouting will help you find elk in drainages, meadows, etc. during different parts of the day.
Now most of this is stuff is what a lot of us do already, but Nate then takes his scouting to the next level. This was the heart of his seminar - what are you going to do to take this information to the next level? Nate will actually then identify different bulls in his unit and by using the methods above he will start to pattern these bulls in August and into the hunting season. He will gather all information he has gained and really know each bulls daily routine. Bull A usually waters around 10pm at this water hole; or bull B always heads to his bedding area at this time and so on with each bull. The time invested in scouting to this level will help you harvest select animals.
I haven\'t scouted to that detail (learning a specific bulls pattern along with knowing every nook and cranny of your unit), and sometimes wonder if you can get to that level, but it is hard to discount a guy that has had success on bulls 16 out of 17 years. Then I started to think about Pete (Still Hunter) as he has been hunting his unit for years and Pete seems to have an exceptional knowledge of his area - to the point where Pete has posted it may be too easy to harvest an elk. There is something to be said about this advice and knowing that Pete has essentially employed this intimate knowledge of knowing your unit inside and out, in order to becoming a great hunter.
Nate said he was asked what are the units he hunts or what is the best unit to hunt. He says the best unit to hunt is the one you know the most.
