late day hunting

[chuck miles]

i have been told that if you dont get your elk by late morning you might as well wait until the next day. i think you should hunt all day until you can't see. any help on this please.

 

[mdunc8]

I shot my bull at about 2:15pm last fall.

 

[dan.kirkpatrick]

they do "hole up" at midday,but evening seems just as good as morning,cant get em if your not hunting.

 

[Much2hunt]

Each to his own.I believe there is a difference between rifle hunting and bow hunting in this respect..

 

[WY Hunter]

shot my bull at 2:30pm this past fall.

 

[Flatrock]

For you guys that shot them in the afternoon, how did you get them and was it with a rifle or bow? Were you still-hunting, maybe sitting up on a hill just glassing? This fall should will hopefully be the first year I chase elk with the rifle and would sure appreciate any tips.

 

[2rocky]

If you are hunting grizzly country, I understand if you don't want to shoot one at last light.
While hunting in Wyoming in 2005, My father killed this bull right before dark. Bang. Dead Right there. He gutted it, and left it for the night.

The next morning we came back to a missing gutpile, Tenderloins, ribs and hams chewed up and a Grizzly bear bed. The bear could have easily been there defending his kill.

From then on I only shoot if I will get the kill out that night. Pictures attached. Pardon the fuzzy, we were a little on edge that morning...

I see the evening as a good time to figure out where you want to be first thing in the morning. Many times after dark I've heard the bull bugle in the drainage I killed him in the next morning. Midday, I've often spotted elk busted out of the dark timber by someone still hunting through.

My only Evening elk was an archery tule elk. He was bedded out in the open tall grass surrounded by cows. When the cows got up to feed they trailed by me and I killed the bull with an arrow at 50 yards. Luckily it was a short blood trail. A marginal hit would have been disastrous.

 

[POk3s]

This year I killed my archery bull at 6:00 PM on September 9th. I hiked way in that morning and saw a ton of elk on the opposite side of this valley....4 different groups if I remember right. I decided to go in after them, I was elk hunting after all. Throughout all of that morning and into afternoon I still hunted along that whole mountainside but at about 2:00 PM decided to just get to the top because the swirling winds were making it next to impossible to hike anywhere with purpose. I was about 50 yards from a cow and a calf but passed the shot because I was hunting for a bull....and I was 6 1/2 miles from my truck. I was already way back in and knew the elk would be back out in the clearings during evening so I just stayed back there.

Took a nap, and made myself a meal and just enjoyed being out there throughout the afternoon. I started to glass some hillsides about 5:15 and spotted a single raghorn bull come out of some trees. He was safe to me as he was a long ways off and i figured he was an exception to the rest of the elk as it was hot out. I waited till 6 and started moving. I walked about 200 yards along this ridge top from where I spent the majority of the day resting and there was a here of elk below me in a clearing feeding....just like I had planned . One bull 4 cows and 4 calves. The bull came home with me.

I believe it's definitely tougher to archery hunt in the evenings but if you're already way back in there where you know the elk are then it becomes doable. I had been face to face with a grizz in that area before and I have seen wolf tracks in that area. I got lucky and nothing had been messed with the next morning. Moral of the story if you're already hunting hard until the middle of the afternoon why go back to camp and disregard the evening hunt??? Take a mountain nap and refuel and hunt the evening. Never know what's gonna happen!

My "bed"

The bull that came home with me

 

[pseshooter300]

Wow did you never see anymore of the grizzly?

 

[putm2sleep]

You cannot get told anything about elk hunting, imo, unless it is from some very fortunate few on here that hunt 40+ days of a season. Or more. Or are seasoned elk veterans. And you certainly do not wait!

If you go for an elk hunt, ya hunt all day. After the morning hunt, you plan for your mid morning stalk and afternoon hunt and route back to camp.

 

[Topgun 30-06]

+1 putm2sleep! Hunt all day and be prepared to skin, quarter, and hang all the meat up high in grizzly/wolf country. Leaving an animal laying on the ground after eviscerating it without completing the task in that kind of an area was just asking for trouble IMHO! Leaving a whole elk on the ground unskinned is also asking for meat spoilage even if no animals come in after it. You need a good plan and all the equipment for a proper hunt BEFORE the hunt commences.

 

[putm2sleep]

....nice point TopGun! I was going to go into the, taking care of the business part when you are successful, as part of the plan. Also going to mention, 'why the hell do you leave a gutted out bull elk (a trophy for a DIY) over night - criitters and spoilage??' that's like poaching imo. Here's your sign......
Black bears will hammer an elk on the ground.They will rip and steal quarters when hung too. Coyotes and wolves. Grizzly.
>note to chuck : always take care of your big game kill, respect for the animal, your trophy and out sport

 

[StrutNut]

I am glad I didnt just hunt mornings on my archery elk hunt. Most of the opportunities where in the morning but there were also several good encounters in the afternoon and evening. With two days left in a our hunt I called in a bull at 40 yards but no clear shot. I was repositioning on him from a different angle when a cow walked passed me at 20 yards. It was a legal animal and I took the shot. My first elk. A memory that wouldnt have happened if I quite after the morning hunt. There was no meat loss and we had her in a tree and at camp before dark.

 

[konasage]

Hunt all day, Elk are where you find them no matter time of day.... Have killed more elk between 10 and 4 than any other time... I can't speak to the grizzly country issue that my be a bit dicey.

 

[sweetnectar]

When bowhunting and the elk bed down then you might as well bed down as well or at least reduce your stalk to a slow crawl in hopes of seeing an elk in its bed before it or the other elk that are with it see you.
When rifle hunting sometimes you can hunt all day long when the weather is bad and the elk will be up feeding. Also with rifle if you push elk out of their beds you might be able to get a shot at them depending on the terrain, but they tend to be die hard critters when they running out of their beds...I think it is an adrenaline thing.

 

[putm2sleep]

Grab a beer and get er done!

 

[BuzzH]

Whoever gave you the advice to only hunt elk in the mornings doesnt hunt elk much.

There are lots of effective ways to kill elk mid-day, in particular with a rifle.

One way I've done it is to glass timbered North facing slopes. Elk get up out of their beds to shift, stretch, etc. a few times a day. If you're sitting across from those slopes when they do...good things can happen. Its boring, glassing and reglassing the same stuff over and over, but it can be a good deal. I usually glass from one spot for an hour or two...then I move to get a better angle, sit down glass another hour or so...usually I can find elk.

Example:

I glassed these timbered sides here for 5-6 hours moving every hour or so:

Wasnt long before it payed off and I could have shot this bull from 300 yards all day long if would have wanted to, right out of his bed:

I found lots of bulls bedded mid-day on this hunt and could have killed most all of them.

Another way is to just slip through the timber really slow. Elk arent that tough to walk up on when they're bedded in thick stuff, if you WATCH THE WIND, move slow, concentrate, and WATCH THE WIND. Elk most often feed much later in the day in thick timber than most realize. They dont particularly like being in the wide-open during daylight hours. They also dont mind slowly feeding their way back to their bedding areas in the timber either.

The bottom line is, being out trying anything will pay off better than sitting in camp taking a nap. Elk dont just vanish in mid-day, they're somewhere, its your job to find them.

As far as taking care of them at dark...its easy. Anyone with a sharp knife or two can get an elk broken down into quarters in 30 minutes. Just get them off the ground as far as possible and move the quarters away from the carcass. In my experience, bears, coyotes, etc. are lazy like any other animal. They'll hit the low hanging fruit (carcass) first, usually leaving your quarters alone, in particular if they're in a game bag. I've also left a shirt or something else hanging next to quarters as well, anything with human scent will typically keep predators away.

Also, if you cant put the meat in game bags, cover with pine boughs, limbs etc. to keep birds off. If an Eagle, magpies, ravens etc. hit your elk...its amazing how much damage they can do...and how fast. Learned that lesson, as well as many others, the hard way.

After looking over my elk photos...I realize that I've killed more from 10 a.m to dark then from daylight to 10 a.m. by a landslide.

 

[konasage]

Good advice Buzz, a couple years ago I shot a bull at about 3pm. Was 2 1/2 miles from the truck and had taken a buddy that had never been hunting before. I was on my own with the knife work but knew we had to get this bull apart and pack as much as possible that afternoon as I had to work 24hrs the next day. An hour later we had the hinds hanging about 50 yards away in game bags as high as we could and the fronts, loins and head were on our packs. We drug the gut pile and the carcass the opposite direction from the hinds about 40 yards and stashed them under some oak-brush (gambel oak), to keep the birds away as long as possible. Since the hinds were going to have to be there for 2 nights and there are an ass-load of bear in the area I wanted to take a bit more effort to keep them off my meat.

Two days later as we approached for the rest of the pack we bumped a bear off the carcass and gutpile was gone. He had drug it a bit further and started a collection of bear bombs in the area as big as your wrist. Went to the tree with my Hinds to find them happy and whole.... no problem. (also covered them with pepper and pine bows). Hopefully I can dig up some pics. If you take a little extra time and effort its really common sense stuff. Good Luck

 

[Goldtip]

I've killed elk, morning, evening, and most times in between. Killed them in Grizzly area's and non grizzly areas. All very good advice offered here. The only bad advice I've seen so far was what the original poster was told about not hunting after the morning.

 

[huntRme]

One of my favorite times to hunt elk is after 3:30 PM. They get up out of bed about then. If you know where they are at nap time just be there and wit till they expose themselves. If you haven't located any in the morning then its a good time to start glassing openings, and be ready to move when you spot them. And, like others have said, take the tools you'll need to take care of the meat before heading out of the woods.