Scouting Trip Reports

[elkmtngear]

Was able to pull my Oregon trail cam this week, it had been there almost a Year

Incredibly, the batteries were still live...and this is the first pic on the card:

It was a group of 3 cows and a spike calf. They came in a few times in August:

And, a very nice buck was a regular over the course of time:

The elk were intermittent visitors, but I did get to see a couple of decent bulls:

Since the area is spike or better, I was encouraged to know there were legal animals showing up year round, including a lot of smaller bucks.

Had a spike in there last week even:

Since I drew Colorado, I will not be hunting there this Season. But it was great to know that there are some elk in the area, it will remain my backup plan for next Season, and I will try to find some bedding areas/ rubs near the location of the cam in future months. This week was basically running up there, pulling the card, and jetting back down...a 7 hour round trip.

 

[iccyman001]

Love those bucks.....


Great pictures, Jeff. Thank you for sharing! :upthumb:

 

[Zpd307]

dang it, dan..... now I am even more depressed about not getting drawn in new mexico :x

 

[iccyman001]

dang it, dan..... now I am even more depressed about not getting drawn in new mexico :x

You\'re definitely not going to like the results from the next trip then..... :downthumb:

Don\'t pay any attention to the game camera pictures :thewave:

 

[iccyman001]

Today I went out to Oklahoma to do some hiking and check in on my cameras.


I want to wait for more growth before I start posting pictures, but I want to give you a good idea of how amazing this year will be.
Last year at this time when I pulled my cameras there was about 1-3\" of growth antler wise....


Because of all the rain this year, the vegetation is INSANE out there and that means.....

 

[Olympushunt]

Just heard from Swede last night. The audacity of some folks. He is out scouting a new area and left me behind to work. He says the mosquitoes are bad. Serves him right. He is in quite a bit of sign and has seen a few including one big bull. It sounds like there is a lot of water which is understandable since it is early June. I am expecting more calls to rub it in too. :lolno:

 

[elkmtngear]

He says the mosquitoes are bad. Serves him right.

Yeah, they were all over me last Week. Shoulda warned him!

 

[Swede]

I am back from my June scouting trip. I saw quite a few elk and lots of sign. I did not find an \"out of this world\" tree stand location. There were trails scattered everywhere, and wallows too, but no great concentration I could find. There was no outstanding place to even set up a trail camera. I am sorry I had to leave Oly behind. I was not just not sure he could keep up. Some of the hikes I took were brutal.

 

[iccyman001]

Please say you at least hung some trail cameras, even if they didn\'t seem like hotspots

 

[Swede]

Well, I guess I could have set Oly\'s camera out and sent him the coordinates to it. That way he could have participated in the scouting, and I would not have had to hike back into some nasty jack-straw jungle. :lol:

 

[colorado russ]

Made a quick trip out Saturday morning to run trail cameras so thought I\'d report back.
Location: SW CO, Private Land, in proximity of Great Sand Dunes
Elevation: 7500-8500
Moisture: More rain and water standing everywhere. Normal water sources are above average flow.
Vegetation: Lush, super green
Mosquitoes: In numbers like I\'ve never seen before! Hope the elk don\'t mind the smell of Off - not sure 1 Thermacell will do the trick.
Roads: All highway then maintained county roads up to property.

We\'ve got 7 cameras out on 1400 acres trying to start patterning. This was our first run of the cameras after 2 weeks so re-learned a few things about setting up trail cameras. 1) Know which way is East/West and don\'t set camera pointing directly towards where the sun is going to be, 2) Moo cows like to rub so setting a camera on a fence post is okay if you pick the correct side and 3) trim branches and weeds further out.

Anyhow, have a few good pictures and possble stand/blind locations. Will be making several more trips down between now and opening weekend. Have to also figure in time to setup antelope stands/blinds too[attachment=2]<!-- ia2 -->MDGC0005.JPG<!-- ia2 -->[/attachment][attachment=3]<!-- ia3 -->MDGC0012.JPG<!-- ia3 -->[/attachment][attachment=1]<!-- ia1 -->MDGC0022.JPG<!-- ia1 -->[/attachment][attachment=0]<!-- ia0 -->MDGC0023.JPG<!-- ia0 -->[/attachment]

 

[Olympushunt]

I think you are set Russ! Now you have all sorts of time to help me scout my areas! lol

 

[colorado russ]

Hadn\'t planned on coming up to Oregon anytime soon but ready if you\'re hunting anywhere in CO!! Luckily I know the property we\'re antelope hunting on and it doesn\'t need much attention until the weekend before opener to make sure where the cattle are it and fence in a ground blind or two.

 

[Olympushunt]

Hadn\'t planned on coming up to Oregon anytime soon but ready if you\'re hunting anywhere in CO!! Luckily I know the property we\'re antelope hunting on and it doesn\'t need much attention until the weekend before opener to make sure where the cattle are it and fence in a ground blind or two.

Thanks, I will keep that in mind. I have always wanted to see Colorado. I\'ve seen some of those Cameron Hanes CO hunts and it is beautiful country that\'s for sure.

 

[colorado russ]

A \"Cameron Hanes hunt\" experience in CO will require you to find a different \"guide\"!!

 

[iccyman001]

Just made it official....


I\'ll be going up to the mountains Saturday to check cameras and new areas

 

[mainebrdr]

Take some pictures, Dan!

 

[iccyman001]

What a FANTASTIC day!!!!!!

Alan and I got into the woods early and checked our four cameras.
First camera was hung over my water hole.

Elk were hitting it early morning around 7am and later at night around 730-8pm.
It\'s not as active as I want yet, but it\'s also still wet out there.
So once it starts drying out there, it\'s going to be FINE!!!!


Then we checked Alan\'s first camera and MAN did it play off well!!!!
I won\'t post all of them, but here are a few good elk.





There were a few more elk, but here is the REAL TREAT!!!!






What a BEAUTY of a bear...... it\'s also a OTC bear unit :think:

We think there are two out there. What do you think?







Maybe even 3 different ones?

 

[iccyman001]

Then we checked my next camera and it was a bust.... something had knocked it over, so very few pictures :x




BUT THEN IT HAPPENED..... We pulled the last camera.....


I counted over 16 different bulls.... all passing throughout the afternoon timeframe. 12-6pm, plus a few randoms...
What do you think of these guys?




















I have tons more

 

[iccyman001]

We moved a few cameras, I hung another one and we are expanding new spots.
We did about 8 HARD miles today.... GEEZ! You might as well call us billy goats :upthumb:



I am feeling really good about this year