Flatland Crusoe
Member
- Joined
- Oct 7, 2014
- Messages
- 572
So this spring I got lucky and drew a late rifle AZ elk tag for unit 8. This will be my second ever elk hunt after hunting a leftover CO elk muzzleloader hunter last fall that was unsuccessful. I am determine to turn things around with this so I planned to take at least one scouting even if it was a few months out. This is entire new terrain to me and I’ve never even laid foot in the state.
Last weekend, I flew to PHX from MDW after work on Friday, met a friend and we drove north a few hours north where we stayed in Cottonwood. We got up early and drove Perkinsville road into the south of the unit and eventually up above the Mogollon Rim. It didn’t register with me that Archery Deer opened that Saturday and lots of guys were glassing for deer in 19A from the roads and 8 seemed just be full of UTV’s packed full of wandering bowhunters in the pine flats. We eventually got off on a 4x4 road with our 2wd rental truck and had to stop short of our trailhead a mile because of mud holes and rutted roads. I will definitely be doing every to get a 4x4 rental in December from Enterprise.
The goal was to learn the terrain and figure out how bad it is to go into and out of Sycamore Canyon and how long the trip takes (with light packs and daylight). I certainly like roadless areas, but I also wanted to know what the worst spots looked like in the unit and to work back from there. We got into fresh elk sign pretty quickly once getting a little ways off of the road. Lots of fresh tracks and droppings and heavy use around the tanks. Feed was certainly very dispersed throughout the pine flats after the summer rain and visibility was rarely more than 100 yards unless you were on a cliff rim.
We did the sycamore canyon hike,and it was obvious that you are committing to a full day once you go over the rim.
In the late afternoon we looped around the higher elevation areas and found tons of people in campsites and driving around in trucks and ATV’s. We took a shorter hike to checkout some of the pockets that will likely hold elk in December by most accounts and they seemed a lot more reasonable to hunt with only a few hundred feet of elevation gain rather than over a thousand feet.
For those familiar with the area, does anyone have a good indicator of snow that would push the elk down into the canyons and pockets from higher up? The Williams, AZ weather station KAZWILLI8 seems to be the nearest thing I could find to watch in November.
I definitely plan to try and get away from roads and glass a lot in December, but I would love any other advice people have for this area.
Last weekend, I flew to PHX from MDW after work on Friday, met a friend and we drove north a few hours north where we stayed in Cottonwood. We got up early and drove Perkinsville road into the south of the unit and eventually up above the Mogollon Rim. It didn’t register with me that Archery Deer opened that Saturday and lots of guys were glassing for deer in 19A from the roads and 8 seemed just be full of UTV’s packed full of wandering bowhunters in the pine flats. We eventually got off on a 4x4 road with our 2wd rental truck and had to stop short of our trailhead a mile because of mud holes and rutted roads. I will definitely be doing every to get a 4x4 rental in December from Enterprise.
The goal was to learn the terrain and figure out how bad it is to go into and out of Sycamore Canyon and how long the trip takes (with light packs and daylight). I certainly like roadless areas, but I also wanted to know what the worst spots looked like in the unit and to work back from there. We got into fresh elk sign pretty quickly once getting a little ways off of the road. Lots of fresh tracks and droppings and heavy use around the tanks. Feed was certainly very dispersed throughout the pine flats after the summer rain and visibility was rarely more than 100 yards unless you were on a cliff rim.
We did the sycamore canyon hike,and it was obvious that you are committing to a full day once you go over the rim.
In the late afternoon we looped around the higher elevation areas and found tons of people in campsites and driving around in trucks and ATV’s. We took a shorter hike to checkout some of the pockets that will likely hold elk in December by most accounts and they seemed a lot more reasonable to hunt with only a few hundred feet of elevation gain rather than over a thousand feet.
For those familiar with the area, does anyone have a good indicator of snow that would push the elk down into the canyons and pockets from higher up? The Williams, AZ weather station KAZWILLI8 seems to be the nearest thing I could find to watch in November.
I definitely plan to try and get away from roads and glass a lot in December, but I would love any other advice people have for this area.
