New to forum - Long message - Quick questions

[Moose Man]

Hello, just been on the forum for a while and I’m amazed with the wealth of knowledge shared! Morning and night I consume valuable information, thanks for all the insights!

Sorry for the long message but in short, I’m a fairly new hunter but have spent a lot of time in the outdoors (grew up in northern Sweden). Last year was my first mule deer season and I went all out, read every book I could get my hands on, studied maps, google earth, scouted a ton (didn’t see a single animal..) The unit is has a lower than 4% success rate so I wasn’t too surprised. That said, each weekend I traveled higher/further and eventually my persistence (and luck) paid off and I was able to harvest a really nice buck (see pic).

Needless to say, the whole experience fueled the fire more and I’ve now got my sights on elk for 2013. I’m now in full “training” mode, spent my holiday roadtrip practicing cow calls/bugles (to my girlfriends delight) and evenings are dedicated to books on elk/elk hunting when I’m not at the range or working out.

Anyway, the challenge I have is that with work schedule and where I live (southern California) I won’t be able to do any or very limited field scouting. Even though I was extremely proud to hunt mule deer “on my own”, I’ve realized that I probably would be better off going with an outfitter to jump start my elk learning curve. If I’m fortunate enough to get a bonus this year, I couldn’t think of a better way to spend the money. The other option I’m looking into is a DIY cow/spike hunt in Utah as I can drive out there.

After looking into outfitters, it amazes me how little feedback/reviews there are. Given the cost, I’d think there would be a lot more. Search for a bow model or a hunt unit and you can find a ton of info/reviews but for outfitters, not so much. So I’m wondering if anyone can provide any suggestions? Feel free to PM me if you don’t want to share publicly.
I’m looking for the following, in order of importance:
- OTC/guaranteed tags (have O points in any state..)
- Good archery guide(s) (I’m looking to learn with the goal of hunting “on my own” in 2014)
- Tent/spike camp style hunt, preferably in scenic/mountain terrain (fitness is one of the few advantages I have, and if I don’t get so see any animals, at least I’ll have nice scenery to look at.. I don’t have any interest in staying at lodge and driving a truck out to different areas.
- Decent amount of animals but I’m not looking for a trophy, I’d be more than happy to chase spikes.

I’m open to any state but prefer the “northern” elk states over Arizona/NM. I’m also looking for a 1 on 1 hunt (hope I can afford it..) for two reasons, I want to learn, and, because I want to learn, I don’t want to impact another more experienced hunters hard earned experience.
Anyway, would be really grateful if you have any tips. I’m driving out to the RMEF camp in Vegas too, hoping to talk to some outfitters there.

Anyway, thanks for your time and all the good insights. If you have any recommendations, I’d really appreciate it.

Cheers

MM

[Magic]

Hello Erik. I can not help you with your questions, but I can Welcome you to Elknut Forums.

[Moose Man]

Thanks Magic, all good, researching outfitters is what I'd call a luxury problem..

[Chad44]

Try looking at royaltine.com. It's a horse packing,outfitting forum. I get a lot of packing info there. Hate to redirect you to another forum but I have never used an outfitter. Hope this helps

[easeup]

better get out of here before you get hook set.

this place will lead you to a life long addiction

[WapitiTalk1]

better get out of here before you get hook set.

this place will lead you to a life long addiction

So not true easeup.. I can quit anytime I want! Really... no really

Welcome to "the" elk forum.

[POk3s]

I would take a serious look at Colorado. You can buy a tag OTC and hunt like 90 something units. I only know one outfitting business in central wyoming that I would recommend to a hunter. That's a far drive. Southern Colorado shouldn't be too far for you. Look over some maps, find a trail and go!

[FemoralArchery]

You can learn enough here to do it on your own this year.

Idaho has month long OTC archery seasons, most are any elk.

[Huntrgathr]

Nice job ! If you were able to harvest a buck in a 4% success rate area your first year out then you must've taught yourself a little something about bow hunting ! You're probably better off just looking for a hunting partner who is more experienced than you are and continue your research and experiential learning. I've never paid a guide but I've heard they can be hit or miss. Good luck !

[mongopino915]

I live in Colorado and hunt OTC public land DIY exclusively. I realized that you do not have the luxury of scouting but Colorado is not a bad place to start if you just want a crack at any elk. There are more public lands with easy access than anyone could care to explore/hike/hunt, not to mention beautiful and breath taking country.

10% of elk country holds 90% of the elk and the only way to find that 10% is through first hand experience with lots of leg work. There is no short cut to finding elk consistently on public land. Google Map is your best tool aside from actual scouting.

Finding elk should be the easy part if you are willing to put in the miles, getting one on the ground is a little more challenging.

Do as much homework as you can from the house and just go, have fun, and enjoy, come September, whether DIY or with a guide.

[JohnFitzgerald]

I've always been a DIY hunter but I don't hold anything against those that hire a guide. Hunting Oregon all my life, I've called in many elk for myself, friends, and family. There's just something about taking an elk and doing it on your own from A - Z.

I might get a few boos and hisses with this comment, but here goes. Scouting is the least important thing in my arsenal. I spend a lot of time looking at maps, reading reports, practicing my calling, and going to the archery range. Doesn't leave much time for scouting. Come hunting season, if an area looks promising I spend an entire day hiking it. I've found some terrible areas this way as well as really sweet honey holes. Elk can range a long distance so the only true way to see if a spot is worth hunting is to be there during the hunt. You can spend all summer setting trail cams only to find out that your really hot spot is well known by 100 other hunters.

So my advice is to choose the state you want to hunt and research/practice until the wife leaves and the neighbors call the police! Once this happens, take a day off and then get right back into it.

Be prepared to hunt any style. I tow a travel trailer up but spend a lot of time on 3 day bivy hunts. Sometimes the elk are within a 1/2 mile of a main road and other times they are 5 miles in wilderness. GO WHERE THE ELK ARE! Last year, in a 4 day period we bugled up ~10 different bulls all within easy walking from a main road.

Lastly, if you don't have it yet, get Paul's instructional material.

PM me if you want to know a little more about Oregon.

Just my Dos Centos!

p.s. Welcome to the forum!

[Indian Summer]

Where do I begin??? I guess I'll back up John for starters. Obviously most non-res elk hunters don't have the luxury to scout their hunting areas. So when a guy asks me what to do I don't tell him scouting is the one and only way to get started figuring things out. Google Earth is PRICELESS.... once you know where you want to look right.

True story (of my first bull): I knew a guy in northern Montana. He was from California and didn't know a single thing about elk. But he did spend some time in the local bar and got to now some old timers who never missed happy hour. I'll make this real quick.... he handed me a hand drawn map on a napkin from an old dude who couldn't hunt elk anymore with some directions... and an X. On day 1 I killed the bull right where the X was.

Last year I hunted Wyoming for elk. I'd hunted there before but never for elk. I have a friend from Statesboro Georgia (he'd be mad if I didn't mention the city lol) who moved to Jackson. He guided for me in Montana for a couple years and last year was his first as a legal Wyo resident. I've surely learned as much as the old man in the bar by now some 25 years later... likely more because I now put the X's on the map.... in areas I have never seen. I love it. My buddy got rid of the Statesboro Blues real quick when he killed his first bull south of Jackson... on the X. Took him 3 days. A week later I killed the bull in my avatar in a new area on the morning of day 1. Another guy who guided for me works down there and he had put an X on the map for me.

I think that if there's one thing you should do while in the midst of your research is find someone who is willing to really help you get started. Maybe even with an X on the map. I ask guys all the time straight up for detailed info. In PMs of course. And guess what... elk hunters are like happy drunkards... willing to buy you a drink if you'll join them in the fun. I get more information than I could ever use. So don't be shy. The battle is half over since you found the ElkNut forums.

As far as where: Yes everyone knows that Colorado has OTC licenses. But so do lots of good states. Montana is a 100% draw. Idaho is OTC. Wyoming has leftover licenses in good areas first come first served although... if you have the money you can also get one guaranteed in the 1st round draw. Oregon and Washington both offer 0TC elk tags. So I wouldn't make the license thing a deciding factor. Find a knowledgable generous elk hunter and wherever he hands you a good solid game plan is where you hunt. If you can find one that offers you to join him then by all means jump on the opportunity. This fall I'm taking a 1st time elk hunter from Kansas to my Wyo spot. He was on the net looking for help and I needed a Wyoming partner..... & I like monster whitetails.

Femoral Archery nailed it when he said you can learn enough on this site to hunt elk yourself. That doesn't mean you won't hire an outfitter to pack an elk out or something. Maybe maybe not depending on where you hunt. But you do NOT need one to put you in good elk country or to hold your hand while you're hunting that's for sure. How many outfitters will tell you that I ask? ha ha.... That said... I have an awesome opening (Montana) from 9/14 to 9/20 from a cancellation if you really want me to take your money. Guided, semi guided, or unguided. First hunters in camp this year on smoking hot dates and you can have the phone numbers of every guy that hunted it last year. But like I said you don't need to pay me. I'm all about the DIY guys... or I wouldn't be here and I surely wouldn't be an ElkNut Field Staffer!!!

The fact that you perservered and killed that buck as well as your statement "Morning and night I consume valuable information" tells me you'll go far pilgrim. Just keep doing what you're doing. Best of luck to you!

[mongopino915]

I agreed with Johnfitz in that scouting may not be necessary but do plan on covering lots of grounds as elk can pretty much live anywhere in elk country where there are shelter, food, and water, sometimes right next to camp or 10 miles from the nearest road. This is true in most elk country in that elk could be there one day and gone the next. Where we hunt, we have lots of different areas to choose from and to mix it up, some better than others, and it's never the same place that you will always find elk. Just remember, locating elk is about locating fresh elk signs and not necessarily seeing elk.

Good luck on your elk venture come September.

[Indian Summer]

Sooo true. When I hear that poeple say there were no elk in the area they hunted the first thing I think is they had to be somewhere.... eventually. They just didn't cover enough ground. You know that's the case when they say that at the trailhead in the same area you are starting at and getting into elk. If a guy never hunted anything but whitetails there's a good chance he looked at every old rub and dry terd and never covered any ground until there was a good reason to slow down. Some of the best deer hunters don't turn out to be very good elk hunters.

When I'm trying to persuade eastern hunters to cover more ground I tell them forget everything you know about whitetails. There is N0T an animal every couple hundred yards. They are over there and they are over there in small herds... and in between there is very likely nothing. That in between can be big.

I'll say this... I would rather push a guy to truck along until he bumped elk and then hunt them.... instead of see him do a heck of a job hunting 3-5 square miles and think he "stomped the heck out of half of Montana with no luck"... which is what hunters new to the mountains sometimes think.

Very good point you make.

[Swede]

The problem with going with a guide, if you are wanting to be a DIY hunter, is that you will learn the guide's area. If it is public land, then you have every right to hunt there, but you may not be welcome there. He may feel taken advantage of. I would find my own area and use the extra year, and money saved, to figure it out on my own. One other thing you can do is call the Forest Service and find out the area an outfitter is permitted for. That may be considered cheating by some, but it is legal too.

[Moose Man]

First of all, thanks for all the great feedback, this truly is an amazing ”community”.

Apologies for the delay in responding, leveraged my 3 day weekend to do some terrain/deer scouting in the mountains. Good times but no animals.

Don’t get me wrong, the mule deer hunt I had this fall is hands down the most rewarding experience I’ve ever had. From learning to scouting/researching and packing in/out, all “on my own” I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

Oh, and for clarity, I didn’t harvest the buck with a bow but he was definitely in bow range. I came across him still hunting a patch of timber at high elevation, he moved in 25 yards from me, perfectly broadside. Doubt that will ever happen again, not in that area.. This year, I’ll be archery hunting though.

The reason I’m considering hunting with an outfitter for elk is mainly time. With work, I only have one week to hunt (need to spend one in Sweden visiting the family). If I spend that week with someone who can “mentor” me, I’ll pick up knowledge it would take me years of hunting solo (if even). Then I can take those learnings and apply it to my “own” hunts in the future.

Yes, I know that you can learn a ton from reading and researching etc, but to gain field knowledge from someone first hand, is invaluable. I was once brought “under the wings” of a seasoned trophy fisherman in Sweden. He’s a unique character and always fished solo. Somehow we got connected and he took me out fishing for an afternoon. We got along really well and from then on, we’d fish every weekend, from first light to sunset and in a season, he shared his lifespan of experience. Things I’d never seen or heard of, just his way of approaching different structures, lure tuning and selection, presentation technique etc. We still fish together every time I go home.
This is one of the aspects I’m looking to get. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll do as much “homework” as I possibly can but I’m looking for the in-field experience. Sort of like a first hand version of the “what would you do?” thread. It technically doesn’t need to be an outfitter I guess..

The point about learning an area is fair. That said, for my own hunts, I'll be looking at utah/colorado but for an outfitted hunt, I'd dont mind flying to wyoming, montana or idaho. I've been to the first two in the winter and love the country. Anyway, I'll continue my research and see where I land..

Thanks again for all the insights.

MM

[JohnFitzgerald]

Now why does everyone shy away from Oregon! I mean, yes hunt those other states.

On a serious note, good luck Erik.