Found wall tents in the area I'm E-scouting- abandon ship?

R.K.

R.K.

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Title says it all. I'm going over some maps, trying to figure out where to deer hunt this year, and saw something odd on the satellite photos. Closer inspection shows it to be a pair of wall tents- on a good flat knob overlooking a couple decent drainages, and right on the path I'd be taking to a glassing knob (but about a half mile before it).

Mile and a half from any road, but ~2.5 once the seasonal road closures take effect for rifle season. Still better than most of the hikes I have to get to my other hunting spots.

My mind goes to a few possibilities:

1- Other DIY hunters are here. If the hunting was good, they'll probably be back. If the hunting was garbage, they probably won't. Neither option is perfect- either dealing with pressure or bad hunting.
2- Outfitter camp- they have hunters in here for weeks at a time, and pressure is through the roof.
3- It's only in there for archery season (fat chance), and I'll have the place to myself in rifle season.
4- It's only an elk camp, and the deer could possibly get left alone.

So- would you hunt here this coming fall? Going in, knowing someone else went through the effort to drag in two wall tents? A place you've dedicated a good deal of time e-scouting, based on one comment from a biologist a couple years ago ("If it were me, I wouldn't go those places- I'd go up XXX Road").

If so- how far away would you to stay from the tents?

My other public land ideas include going to a different region entirely, or praying for heavy snow and shooting a small 4x4 coming down a mountain.
 
Is it blm land? I know of two locatuons where ive found tents that are put up every year by the rancher for fall cattle round up
 
neffa3 said:
Go check it out. Maybe they're shitty hunters.
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I assume that the majority of hunters are shitty hunters and are ineffective at hunting the most obvious of animals until I see them prove otherwise, I've been the 4th person at a glassing point and had to pretend I wasn't seeing anything until everybody else left so I could make a move on the bull I could see with my naked eye while making conversation about how slow it was...I would hunt it like the camp wasn't there until they gave me a reason to go elsewhere.
 
GrantK said:
I assume that the majority of hunters are shitty hunters and are ineffective at hunting the most obvious of animals until I see them prove otherwise, I've been the 4th person at a glassing point and had to pretend I wasn't seeing anything until everybody else left so I could make a move on the bull I could see with my naked eye while making conversation about how slow it was...I would hunt it like the camp wasn't there until they gave me a reason to go elsewhere.
Click to expand...
Love this.
Although we have a running joke where we start to use our binos backwards and talk about how slow it is when others approach it usually shuts down the small talk before it gets going.
 
GrantK said:
I assume that the majority of hunters are shitty hunters and are ineffective at hunting the most obvious of animals until I see them prove otherwise, I've been the 4th person at a glassing point and had to pretend I wasn't seeing anything until everybody else left so I could make a move on the bull I could see with my naked eye while making conversation about how slow it was...I would hunt it like the camp wasn't there until they gave me a reason to go elsewhere.
Click to expand...
There's a place we used to hunt where you'd pass at least 6 full on camps on the way to our camp. I mean wall tents, horses, atvs, many trucks, a damn near city full of dudes. I couldn't imagine better hunting, it was that good. I can count the # of people I saw in the field over the 6 years we hunted it on one hand and still have enough fingers left to have fun with.
 
neffa3 said:
There's a place we used to hunt where you'd pass at least 6 full on camps on the way to our camp. I mean wall tents, horses, atvs, many trucks, a damn near city full of dudes. I couldn't imagine better hunting, it was that good. I can count the # of people I saw in the field over the 6 years we hunted it on one hand and still have enough fingers left to have fun with.
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Oh, for sure, one of my favorite spots can be hard to find a parking place there are so many camps, I've seen maybe 3 groups of people off the road there? you don't know until you go and try it for real, during the season... my dad was on a streak a couple of years ago of shooting elk out of the trailhead parking lot, weird stuff happens if you spend enough time out...
 
I have seen wall tents in prime areas that are empty every time I ever pass them throughout the season. I think they are setup as a deterrent sometimes just to discourage hunters from going in that area. I walk right past them anymore like they don’t exist.
 
GrantK said:
I assume that the majority of hunters are shitty hunters and are ineffective at hunting the most obvious of animals until I see them prove otherwise, I've been the 4th person at a glassing point and had to pretend I wasn't seeing anything until everybody else left so I could make a move on the bull I could see with my naked eye while making conversation about how slow it was...I would hunt it like the camp wasn't there until they gave me a reason to go elsewhere.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I probably fit into that description. Which is why I find myself trying to out-hike everybody else- I doubt my ability to out-hunt them. 😅 Finally got a real set of binoculars, though, so I’m hoping that helps.

The bad part is that I’ve been hoping to find a decent spot less than an hour hike in. No dice so far, especially with the lack of snow these last couple years.
 
Just because the google satellite captured a photo of a wall tent in an area you’ve now invested “so much” energy into doesn’t mean there’s not a wall tent in all the other areas you may have looked at. If there weren’t any other hunters I’d be more worried that the place sucks. If you find a spot with no outfitters, no DIY hunters and abundant game please do not hold back - blow it up on social media and make some YouTube videos about it.
 
If it is on national forest I wonder if you can call the local office and see if they can tell you if it is an outfitter? I have never tried to find out where outfitters are setting up on national forest but I would think they should be able to tell you. Has anybody else done this?
 
Outfitters and sheep herder leave their tents up year round FYI, not sure if it's "legal" as part of their specific permit, but they 100% do and I can provide GPS coords for a dozen camps in CO that have been there for a decade or more.

Ccthomes said:
If it is on national forest I wonder if you can call the local office and see if they can tell you if it is an outfitter? I have never tried to find out where outfitters are setting up on national forest but I would think they should be able to tell you. Has anybody else done this?
Click to expand...
They can't tell you if that tent belongs to an outfitter (probably) but every outfitter is assigned a compartment within the NF, they can only work in that area. The district office can provide you a map of the compartments and who is assigned to each one, some offices are more janky than others FYI.
 
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If it is a place with good game density there will be other committed hunters and outfitters in it. Count on it. Outfitters are spread thin usually, and tend to pick the lower hanging fruit. That means a Horseback range of 6 miles from camp, and not a lot of walking other than glassing from a ridge. They have to hunt for 3 months straight so they aren't gonna bust their ass the first week like a guy who has only 5 days to hunt. However they have the history and knowledge of the country so they will have their oneyholes that produce right out the gate. Go hunt your hunt and adapt as needed.

You might be able to determine from which direction the pressure is coming from and take advantage of the escape routes like a saddle in the ridge above the main trail.
 
I wouldn’t abandon the hunt plans over that. A lot of guys in wall tents are hunting with horses and may not even be hunting near their camp.
 
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