Your Elk Hunting Style

[Swede]

Calling, spot and stalk, tree Stand and still hunting all have their advocates. What is your preferred elk hunting style and why? Where do you believe your style works best and why? If you have not determined you have a preferred style, why?

I prefer tree stand hunting. I believe I have more success that way than I could ever have calling or with spot and stalk. Bow hunting is very short range, so it works better than still hunting IMO. My hunting is really done when I hang my stand. After that it is just waiting and relaxing. Oh, I may do something in my stand, but it is usually insignificant in the scheme of things, as far as getting elk within shooting range. The key to tree stand success is very simple. Place your stand where you can shoot elk.

 

[Bob Frapples]

The unit I drew is very rough and looking at GE standing water, other than streams look like they will be impossible to find without footwork. There are few benches that I see but the couple I do see stick out like a sore thumb and I\'m sure will be wrapped up with folks so I\'m thinking I\'ll need to find trails think like swede.

 

[Baby Huey]

I typically still hunt and stay out all day - I don\'t trek back to camp mid day. I stay out all day, as I will hike 1-4 miles from a base camp, so I don\'t typically like the thought of hiking that distance twice, just to be back in camp. During archery I will cow call once in a while and an occasional bugle to try and locate a bull, but once I spot elk, I typically do not call, as the elk will know something is out there and will typically peg the area where the calls originated and will be looking that way - or at a minimum be aware of whatever is making those calls in that direction. I like to try and ambush or sneak up on them once they are located. Even still hunting I always am glassing - it is amazing the patch of fur, ear, leg, rump, etc. that you will see through the thick trees by using your binoculars - even in an area that you can only see maybe 100 to 200 yards because of the dense trees.

 

[OldMan]

It\'s certainly no surprise that I only still hunt. It\'s been my preferred method all my hunting career. Which is a bit over 60 years.

For the last 15 years i\'ve refined it to hunting benches that elk bed down on. I\'m in a position to spend a lot of time scouting. At least 250 days a year. I also hunt one unit. Over the years i\'ve found benches that elk bed down in every year. Maybe not the same elk, but elk. I\'ve even noticed that if elk are spooked off a bench that other elk will use it later. I\'ve also noticed that as the seasons progress that elk will use benches deeper into the mountains, and the difficulty of hunting them grows harder. It\'s one of the reasons i\'ve switched from rifle seasons to muzzleloader season, because it\'s earlier in the year. Being in the rut doesn\'t really affect my style.

I hunt early in the morning to catch the elk coming from feeding areas to bedding areas. If I can\'t get that done I hunt the rest of the day going into the bedding areas. This is painfully slow hunting. There\'s a lot of eyes and noses trying to find me. I have the advantage of knowing where they are. To be correct this is really stalking, and not still hunting. I had to still hunt during my scouting more than my hunting. However, a lot of times later in the day i\'ll go into what I know is a bedding area not knowing if they\'re there. That would be still hunting. In either case i\'m using still hunting moves. Which is moving like a snail, and being as quiet as a mouse. Always working the wind. I have no faith in scent control. I only have faith in wind control. If the wind isn\'t in my favor I back out. Once the elk bust me they\'re gone to not return that season.

My shots are always close. 95% could be taken with a bow. I use heavy slow bullets to prevent meat damage. I\'m a meat hunter.

Why do I hunt this way? I find it the most rewarding and challenging. I want to be on the ground face to face with all the elks senses working at full strength.

I hunt for muley bucks the same way, but i\'m just dealing with one animal instead of a herd like elk. Unless i\'ve singled out a bull. Which is pretty hard in muzzy season. It was much easier in rifle seasons.

This year i\'ll also going to try the same methods on bear. Except it will be still hunting into where they feed instead of where they bed. That would be impossible to pattern down.

Sorry, I sort of rambled.

 

[cohunter14]

There are few benches that I see but the couple I do see stick out like a sore thumb and I\'m sure will be wrapped up with folks so I\'m thinking I\'ll need to find trails think like swede.

Don\'t necessarily discount those benches just because they are rare. Truthfully, there are not a lot of elk hunters who even know to hunt benches. The other thing I would suggest if you are not seeing many on a topo is definitely keep your eyes peeled as you are hunting. You might stumble on some smaller benches that don\'t show up on a topo, but could hold elk.

As far as my style goes, I have used all of these outside of calling. Because I am a rifle hunter and typically have a scope on my rifle, I find still hunting difficult unless I am in an area that isn\'t too thick. So I spend more time doing either spot and stalk or stand hunting. A lot of that just depends on where I am hunting. Spot and stalk will not work in certain areas, in which case the only real way to hunt is stand hunt or still hunt. But I love spot and stalk hunting. It is a lot more fun seeing animals than it is hoping to stumble on them. Clear as mud, right? :dk:

 

[cnelk]

My typical archery day is leaving the truck no less than an hour before daylight to get into the area I want to hunt.
We will listen and once it\'s light, we set up and call.
What happens next all depends on what the elk do.
We will continue on doing calling set ups / chasing elk that sometimes takes us 5 miles from the truck.
We then make our way back to the truck and then back to camp for some lunch, maybe a nap, and camp chores.
The evening hunts find us either in tree stands or slipping easy thru other spots checking out for the next morning hunts

So I really don\'t know what style that is, but we enjoy it and it works

 

[Bob Frapples]

I like to hunt like still described, I call it stilking. Deer are really tough to do like this but if woods are somewhat open and especially when it\'s a windy day I enjoy it better than stand hunting. Generally I\'ll see more deer, I\'m hoping the elk woods will be more ideal than most of out woods down south here.

Cohunter, I hope your right, this place I found is what I consider ideal, it\'s about 1 mile from trail head, 2/3 to the top and looks like a stream not too far away from it. I\'m defiantly going scout it out.

 

[bnsafe]

right now i dont have a preferred style. i spend my time stumbling around an hoping to get lucky. but, i learned alot last year an will be targeting three distinct areas i think elk will be in this year. i am going to mix in still hunting in the morning with cold call set up, along with just sitting some benches i found that hold elk sign an lots of it. i dream elk hunt would be to run a gun an find bugling bulls. but i hunted alot last year an finally took my elk on the 25th, but only heard a hand full of bugles the entire season, an i was in areas i knew there were bulls in. so as adrenaline rushing as that sounds i dont hold in faith in killing a bugling bull.

 

[elky McElkerson]

i seriously dont know what i am doing.

i\'ve often consider ponying up the cash to pay a guide ONCE to learn the ropes. i think i walk too much. the times i have gone, i find myself in timber that is much to dense to sit and glass. i just play the wind, and walk looking for glassable hills. sometimes terrain dictates you walk with the wind..i shudder to think of the elk i have blown out of the county.

someday, i\'ll get the stars to align..haha.

 

[ORelksniper]

i seriously dont know what I\'m doing.

Cliff, you\'re a funny guy. Aren\'t there any elk mentors in the Bay Area you can team up with? :mock:

 

[Zpd307]

I would have to agree with cliff. that\'s how I felt last year. I got into elk but when they didn\'t do what I thought they should have, I was left standing there scratching my head.... I wanted to get better, that\'s how I found you guys

 

[Buglemaster]

Without doubt, my favorite method is calling. There just isn\'t a more exciting, adrenalin rush than calling in a loud mouthed slobbering bull. Our group of 3 have had success with all of the above mentioned methods except for 1. Never hunted elk from a tree stand. Cnelk brought me out a copy of Swede\'s book on tree stand hunting that is a great read. I\'m planning on trying it this fall. I have always been intrigued with the tactic, just haven\'t tried it. I believe the really successful elk killers take advantage of every tactic in the book & know when to use them on any given day or situation. My biggest obstacle to treestanding will be PATIENCE, of which I have little.

 

[iccyman001]

Can I ask real quick.....

What is a \"bench\"?

 

[cohunter14]

It is any flat spot on an otherwise sloped hill. Sometimes they can be 100 yards or more wide by 50 yards deep (into the hill) and other times they can be only a couple of yards in both directions. Anything that is flat has the potential for elk to use it as a bedding area.

 

[iccyman001]

Thank you Derek!!

 

[cohunter14]

Iccy, not to hijack the thread, but here is an example of a bench from one of the maps I used in another thread. There are a bunch of them on this topo, but the arrow here shows one of them and how to find them on a topo map. Hope that helps!

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