Same spots annually?

[badlander]

Working on figuring out this elk hunting thing. I'm heading in for my 4th elk trip to MT this fall. So far, I've bounced around a lot and spent time in the breaks, the Gravellies and the Belts. Once was rifle, twice with a bow mid Sept and once early Oct. I did manage to kill a bull with my bow on one of those trips but that was a bunch more luck than it was skill. So, basically every trip was about as different as possibly could be.

This year, i'm finally planning to head back into the same area that I hunted last year with my bow and although instead of mid to late Sept with 4 guys, I am heading back solo and thinking about trying the 1st week and a half of the season.

Last year, during what at least should have been the rut I found several areas that were torn up with rubs, wallows etc... but most of them were a few days to a week or two old but appeared to be places the elk had spent quite a bit of time either just before or at the very early phase of the rut and I assume were pushed out by hunters. There were also a few of them were where we did find and get into elk and had some opportunity. Some of these spots were 20-30 rubbed trees on ridge tops in the timber, others were wallows in wet meadows or in small side drainages anywhere from smallish like this one in my photo to being 10' -12' across. One travel area I found that appeared to be moving from feeding to bedding cover was a wide swath so covered with elk poop I was able to follow the herd by the fresh elk droppings. Other spots where I found elk were nearly devoid of elk sign except for fresh poop and that rutty bull elk smell

My question is, do you typically see elk return annually to any or all of these types of spots, or is it like everything else related to elk hunting and they just are where they are whenever they are there at that time (or is it they are where you find them??....hmmm?)?

 

[COelkhunter2020]

Congratulations on the bull elk.

I hunt the same areas for rifle every year. Elk come back every year. It has changed with time, I believe the pine beetle wind blow and better hunter access is the cause. But the elk are still there, just a little farther in.

It sounds like you have found a productive area. Heading back there during the same time of year would be my vote assuming the habitat and hunter pressure are the same. Heading to a new area could be more of a gamble.

One year the elk were not there, and I heard almost no shooting in the valley that year. Word was that the elk moved down to wintering grounds super early for some reason. This is 1 in 8 years. No idea why.

 

[Wildabeest]

+1

 

[Matt Dworak]

Sounds like you've found a spot that's worth spending some time getting to know. I have an opening morning archery spot where I'm close to 50% success. I don't scout it at all anymore, just slip in early AM on the opener with my climber. LOVE that spot!

 

[307HiCntryHnter]

In my experience an Elks home range is very large, they will have several spots like you described. They will travel between those spots at random, but will return, it might take them up to a week or more. If you have the time they will return, even from year to year.

 

[badlander]

Thanks for the comments. I do feel like those elk got bumped out of several of these areas by early season pressure.

I’d love to hunt bugling bulls screaming in my face but, in all the public land, pressured area hunts I’ve been on we’ve never really hit that. We were on the mountain from 9/12-9/25 last year and I can count the bugles I heard on 1 hand. But, I know there were elk there.

Am I off base thinking about trying to get in there earlier this year? Talked to a few guys that had been there since opener, and to one rancher riding the hills looking for a few missing cows and they all mentioned that the bulls were talking well late Aug, early Sept but had quieted down again for the duration of our trip.

 

[ntodwild]

Thanks for the comments. I do feel like those elk got bumped out of several of these areas by early season pressure.

I’d love to hunt bugling bulls screaming in my face but, in all the public land, pressured area hunts I’ve been on we’ve never really hit that. We were on the mountain from 9/12-9/25 last year and I can count the bugles I heard on 1 hand. But, I know there were elk there.

Am I off base thinking about trying to get in there earlier this year? Talked to a few guys that had been there since opener, and to one rancher riding the hills looking for a few missing cows and they all mentioned that the bulls were talking well late Aug, early Sept but had quieted down again for the duration of our trip.

I think you may be on to a place you can probably hunt yearly. As stated, Elk do have a large range area but smaller areas within the larger range get used during specific times of year for specific reasons (one of the things e-scouting can't tell you). Those areas and times can be thrown off for a host of reasons (hunt pressure, weather, predators and so on). Typically this is not a time period that is thrown off by months, typically days or weeks. We hunt the same large area yearly during Sept archery and weather along with rut timing typically are the greatest factors as to when and where elk show first. If it's unseasonably hot, water is a definite concern as well as fresh brows and we have honey holes that produce under those circumstances. Hunt pressure is another big one and like clock work if we have other hunters in specific camps in and around our area we can depend on elk being pushed to specific areas and play those areas (when hunters are not in those camps it also changes behaviors and patterns). Obviously this requires a few years/hunting seasons to figure out.

As a retired, full time outdoorsman myself as well as my hunt partner, we have time to spend over 30 days in the field during late Aug. through Sept. so we go through the effort (understanding our hunt area well) of setting up small spike camps we can hunt out of for 2-3 days at a time while having a base camp (travel trailers) centrally located that we can "regroup" every 2 or 3 days and have found this to be a very successful strategy for hunting a "larger" elk area with multiple smaller "honey holes" that are dependent on seasonal elk habits.

Keep at it. You may be on to something, some place you can come back to every season.....

 

[406LIFE]

Hunt until its broke...

My homestate tends to be the same areas as the remain productive. Part of what I like about out of state is learning new areas, new places, new experiences. That makes you a better hunter. If you can show up and get it done in a week in a place you have never been, that's something.

 

[diamond hitch]

It took me 5 years in my current ground of steady hunting to learn patterns, trails, and timing. It took another 5 years to be able to guess where under what weather conditions.

with two hard winters and the entire forest caving in all of that is out the window and I'm starting over. Same country but patterns are changing as is the migration.

I can't imagine having to do it over every year in a differant local. You folks are better than I.

 

[badlander]

Diamond hitch, I agree with you there. I’ve been fortunate enough to draw my mule deer tag in MT for 7yrs in a row now and feel like we’ve finally got our hunting area dialed in. There are better areas I’m sure, but where I go I know where to hunt if it’s been hot, I know where to go when it rains and the two tracks get sloppy, etc...


I spent a few years looking for the holy grail of an elk spot and never really found it. Decided I’d rather learn an average area well than keep stumbling around hoping to find “the” spot. Maybe once I can kill a bull consistently here, I’ll look for a better spot, or maybe not?

 

[2rocky]

Both my father and I have spots we have tagged out regularly. Often on Opening day. Either areas bulls hold up cows or an escape route from where other hunters bump them.

Once you know an area it is a process of elimination where you "FIND" the elk. When they aren't in their regular spots, then you gotta find other places they go when pressured. After 5 years of killing elk in the first 3 days in one of our spots, we had a year where it was 5 days before I saw a bull. I've had elk completely pushed out of the whole drainage. Eventually you gotta just keep checking the usual haunts, and then check a new spot. Try and be methodical rather than ping ponging around the map.

 

[diamond hitch]

A technique I have used in primary recon is to record both in the gps and on a topo sheet - where I have seen elk, what sex and when. Also record the wind direction and the escape route (the elks). In a short time you will have enough data to start to understand patterns and what to expect. Why topos? They don't periodically fail over time or get replaced. The topo will also give you a bigger picture for planning. You might also plot elk highways. Often they are the only transportation corredor in some of this rough and remote country. Elk are inheirently lazy and will travel the best grade for the least effort in the country like beef.

 

[badlander]

Thanks for everyone's thoughts on this, I appreciate it.

One of the hardest parts of all of this is that prior to last years hunt to this area we "e-scouted" this pretty heavily wooded country a ton. We looked for N facing slopes for bedding cover, S facing hillsides and small open parks in the woods for feed and water in this area is in pretty much every drainage and most open parks on the mountain have a spring or or waterhole in them so water is not a limiting factor at all.

We found elk, but, in none of those places! The elk we found we found, we simply found by getting in the woods and walking, all day, until we found fresh sign - (then we screwed up the few had earned opportunities that we did have one after the other but that's another thread) Now, as I put together a plan for Sept, I look for those more "traditional" spots but I'm a little gun shy that to be honest my success might be just as good closing my eyes, putting a finger on the map strapping up my pack and hiking in. At least this year I have a "somewhat proven" places to start!

 

[ZBulls93]

Badlander I have had this question myself. I freak myself out every year thinking that because I hear the barrage of shots on opening morning (rifle elk) that they will head out of town for good. Thankfully, like many of our favorite critters, they are creatures of habit. As long as that habit (food, water, cows, cover) remain available, they can’t resist coming back. Just as much as you, badlander, I appreciate all of the comments.

 

[Shortbowshot]

Don't get hung up hunting elk where they were last week. Elk can be nomadic. It's easy on a 7 day hunt to waste half your time on old sign. Move on, they did.