Tracking elk in the snow?

[TommyCorrgs]

You might be able to pick up something as a leftover.

I think I might, probably best to stop giving myself excuses and go for it.

 

[Tradewind]

I'd find a new hunting partner

 

[2rocky]

I've spooked elk before and this wasn't one of those times they just kept strolling along and our wind was right as well...

If it was late in the day and the other 3 were tired already, and snow was coming down, I could understand their wanting to bag it.
80% of elk hunters are intimidated by the prospect of being stuck in the woods after dark, in the snow more than a couple miles from the truck.

My father lost much of an elk that he killed at dusk to a grizzly 15 years ago. Ever since then he called the evening hunt "a scouting trip for tomorrow morning".

 

[TommyCorrgs]

I'd find a new hunting partner

My hunting partner is great, he's my best friend, his uncle was the issue and his wife and daughter did nothing but complain. I agree with what other people have been saying about sneaking through the woods with 5 people and 2 of them complaining is probably impossible

 

[Bob-WY]

Shot my first elk this tear by following tracks. They were at least 12 hours old. I don't know if the cow I shot made the tracks. It was a trail made by lots of elk. Figured they would lead to a good area. 200 yards later I shot a cow

 

[Crimeny]

Well he couldn't very well say "I don't want to chase these elk because of my wife and daughter." Priorities. I mean he was wrong, but to each their own.

 

[squirrel]

Go by yourself, let them take you to elk graduate school, and study HARD, the grading is pass fail no curve. Learn to age tracks, crusty snow is the best so get on it early am. Learn to sex beds, no sense tracking girls. Pay attention to the big picture and the small micro picture at the same time, not easy while still paying ultimate attention to being skilled at your sneekology. When you end up at 5-75 yards control your emotions and execute a precise shot on an imprecise target... nuttin to it. Remember the one who busts you cold is the one you never saw while focusing on the ones you thought erroneously were the only ones in sight yet.

 

[2rocky]

Just a thought for when you get another chance to track elk

I've stumbled into a herd of feeding elk a couple times in late September but a bedded bunch is all eyes....

If you can get a few yards off of the trail/tracks they won't be watching your direction directly. I recall a blacktail doe who a buck had sequestered away that spooked as I crested a finger on a stalk. I ran up hill about 50 yards before I came over the next finger and she was watching her back trail and the buck was watching her. She eventually went back to feeding and the buck bedded facing away from me 65 yards distant. I watched them for an hour and a half until the buck got up and fed within 25 yards and I arrowed my first deer.

 

[shrapnel]

The most important thing to remember is that when you stop tracking/trailing, you are only half way. You do need to get back to where you started from whether or not you got an elk. Add an elk to that formula and you might have been better off going back to the truck.

Winners never quit and quitters never win, but sometimes a quitter isn't as tired.

 

[Ben Long]

To paraphrase Gus McCrae, a fellow who won't follow elk tracks in the snow doesn't want to shoot one very bad.

 

[TommyCorrgs]

Go by yourself, let them take you to elk graduate school, and study HARD, the grading is pass fail no curve. Learn to age tracks, crusty snow is the best so get on it early am. Learn to sex beds, no sense tracking girls. Pay attention to the big picture and the small micro picture at the same time, not easy while still paying ultimate attention to being skilled at your sneekology. When you end up at 5-75 yards control your emotions and execute a precise shot on an imprecise target... nuttin to it. Remember the one who busts you cold is the one you never saw while focusing on the ones you thought erroneously were the only ones in sight yet.

This is great advice thank you