Teach me your scouting skills please

[cohunter14]

Thanks guys, excellent information being posted here.

Do you guys typically try to be in position to hunt these meadows at first light or in the late afternoon, or do you hunt the transition areas between feeding and bedding areas.

I have run into the situation more times than not where the elk are on the move at the first sign of light.

A lot of this just depends on the area you hunt. We have hunted areas where we \'stand hunted\' from the ground on the edges of these meadows, both early and late, and would get elk moving through or into them. Other areas, the elk might already be headed back to their beds by the time the sun comes up.

 

[Swede]

Do you guys typically try to be in position to hunt these meadows at first light or in the late afternoon, or do you hunt the transition areas between feeding and bedding areas.

I don\'t pay much attention to meadows. As a tree stand hunter I focus on springs and trails near bedding areas.
If I spent more time calling, I would go to where the elk answered my call. Do not go into a meadow to call as the elk will spot you there. When I am on the ground hunting, I stay in cover. Elk don\'t spend a lot of their daylight hours out in meadows, but they will graze through them.

 

[cnelk]

I never said I HUNTED meadows
They are part of my scouting research.
I actually dislike hunting meadows, especially archery

I find small meadows to see what I can find for elk sign. In or around the edges.

 

[cohunter14]

I do agree that hunting meadows while archery hunting would be very difficult. For rifle, it makes good sense

 

[Anonymous]

First, I don\'t consider myself an expert at elk hunting or finding them. To me they are a tough animal to scout. They typically don\'t follow patterns that are easy to discern. You have to keep in mind the basics: food, water, bedding areas and rut behavior. If an area has a lot of water such as creeks, streams, wallows, etc...don\'t concentrate on water. Same thing with feeding and bedding areas. If there\'s food everywhere, then you can\'t concentrate on that. Find an area\'s shortcoming(s), and use it to your advantage. I\'ve hunted areas with little water so find the water source(s) and most likely, you\'lol find the elk. I hunted an area where the elk fed (mostly) in a rancher\'s fields down in the bottom of the valley. They would come down off the mountain late afternoon to feed all night, then head back up in early morning. Hunting those elk involved intercepting them going to/from bedding and feeding areas. Also, if you spooked these elk, they would\'nt go very far...up or down the mountain range because of the limited food in the area.

I hunted another area on top of a flat mountain range. The entire top part of that had thousands of acres of meadows...large meadows and it was extremely hard to pinpoint where the elk were feeding. The area also had a lot of water and bedding so it was tough to hunt. If you spooked elk there, they would move entirely out of the area.

So, look for areas that have some type of limiting factors. Also, look for areas that would have the least amount of hunting pressure...away from trails, roads, etc....

Also you can tell thedifference between areas with dark timber and aspens by looking at aerial photos. Dark timber looks darker than aspens in those photos. This is my experience with Colorado.