Scouting Trip. Picture heavy!

[Lark Bunting]

Took The Boy up scouting this weekend. It was a hectic beginning as I\'d been called out of town for business Thursday to Des Moines. I got back late Friday night, picked him up and got a few hours of rest. We left on Saturday and immediately got stuck in traffic on I-70.

After a four hour drive, we arrived and pitched camp, then headed out to the woods.

We saw some cool stuff:

Bella had fun:

Found a wallow with some tracks through it but didn\'t appear it had been used much:

Found a seep feeding the wallow.

Found a lot of beds in the marsh:

This was the marshlands...it was 4\" deep water all the way across to the other tree line. This is where we found all the beds.

I caught a horrible cold and was feeling like crap so my son took over camp duties:

The Boy:

We hiked a lot. Hard to see but this is near the top on the east side overlooking the valley of the marshland and some whitecaps to the west. Not a lot of open areas to glass...it\'s REALLY THICK woods!

Unfortunately, we only got to spend one night before heading home.

All in all we had a lot of fun and got a good feel for the lay of the land. We stopped counting the older elk droppings at 50+, moose droppings at 30+ and only saw a few deer droppings. We did not find any elk but saw cattle in the area. Cattle suck. I look forward to seeing the area in a few weeks. Heading back up the day before opening season. I hope we can find some elk!

 

[Swede]

Lark: You say you saw old elk droppings. Did you find anything fresh, other than the cow paddies? On the map the Forest I hunt is called the Malheur. Some people know it as the Manure N.F. because of how it is over grazed by cattle. Half of the grass on the N.F. is supposed to be left for the wildlife. The ranchers must think the elk can eat the roots.

 

[Lark Bunting]

Lark: You say you saw old elk droppings. Did you find anything fresh, other than the cow paddies? On the map the Forest I hunt is called the Malheur. Some people know it as the Manure N.F. because of how it is over grazed by cattle. Half of the grass on the N.F. is supposed to be left for the wildlife. The ranchers must think the elk can eat the roots.

Yes, we found a few fresh droppings from elk but not many, like 4-5. We actually didn\'t see ANY cow patties though, which was weird because we saw the cattle. The cattle were about 1/2 mile away from where we were camping.

 

[cohunter14]

Very cool Lark, glad you were able to get some boots on the ground and get a feel for the lay of the land. Hope you are feeling better!

 

[cnelk]

Those first two pics are exactly the kind of stuff we shoot elk in...

I hope you marked that spring/wallow as that area will be good