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What I Like Best

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What I Like Best

Postby Swede » 11 07, 2017 •  [Post 1]

What do you like best about your elk hunting area, and what do you least like about it? Why did you choose it and why do you stay?

I know my area very well as I lived and worked there. I have good friends to hunt with that make the hunt a joy even when the hunting is slow.
I don't like the hunters running around calling, but it has tapered off the last few years. I think more elk hunters are tree stand hunting. I don't like the cattle invasion that helps push the elk onto private land.
I stay there as it can be very productive the first few days of the season. After that I think I will leave. Maybe I will stay until the younger generation (Stringunner and Oly) have to go back to work, then I may move on.
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Re: What I Like Best

Postby Washington Wapiti » 11 07, 2017 •  [Post 2]

My area is one that I lived and worked in, also, during my seasonal wildlife/habitat restoration years, before I even started hunting. I started coming to the area 20 years ago for work, and before that for a variety of different reasons during different periods of my young life. Lots of nostalgia wrapped up there for sure. My happy place if you will. I like that my brother and I found the immediate hunting area together, just cruising the area for deer, but then we stumbled upon a lot more elk sign. I like that I got a warm fuzzy feeling right away about it, and that my intuition was right . . . even though it took a couple years to fully realize it. What I like least is the sketchy element that has apparently moved in, pulling all sorts of shenanigans over the last 2 years or so. Used to be, people just leave your stuff alone. When I first started using cams there, I didn't even put a lock around them. I don't like that every year more and more hunters walk and hunt through my set-up. I very rarely bugle anymore because of giving away my location too many times. I do a majority of my calling - cow and rare locators - after the weekend buglers go home. I chose it because of the crazy amount of rubs, poo, tracks we discovered there at the time. I stay because even though it isn't deep wilderness hunting, there are currently somewhat predictable huntable elk there. I'm after elk meat over complete solitude or a wilderness hunting experience. I also have a system that I've developed over the last several years to get in and get animals out with my back issues as well as learning the area well.
The only time I've hugged a tree is to hang a stand.
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Re: What I Like Best

Postby Navesgane » 11 07, 2017 •  [Post 3]

What I like best about the area I elk hunt; it's really steep, rugged and high which keeps a lot of people from hunting it.

What I like least about it; it's really steep, rugged and high.
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Re: What I Like Best

Postby WapitiTalk1 » 11 07, 2017 •  [Post 4]

Navesgane wrote:What I like best about the area I elk hunt; it's really steep, rugged and high which keeps a lot of people from hunting it.

What I like least about it; it's really steep, rugged and high.


Umm, I can relate Jeff :-/
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Re: What I Like Best

Postby Roosiebull » 11 07, 2017 •  [Post 5]

what I like the most about my primary area (i'm a little bit of a transient, and hunt several areas) is the scenery and solitude, and the mystery, good genetics, and charcoal black antlers that are common there...well, more common than some spots, common is relative :lol: the spot I hunt the most is so vast there is no way I could ever know "the bulls" that use it, I think there are some I have not, and may never see.

what I like least is the terrain features, that is what keeps folks out, but some times I feel it's irresponsible to hunt it like I feel I need to. I could see some parts of that area taking me a couple days to extract a bull by myself, and in some weather during season, that time is just not realistic to get meat out of the woods and cooling in a timely manner. lots of it is not a distance thing, but a difficulty of terrain, big steep drainage after big steep drainage.

what keeps me there is the feeling like I have so much time invested learning it, and knowing I have only scratched the surface in the sense of what holds elk, and how they use it. I have been climbing all over those ridges the last few seasons, and others have not, so even if I encounter competition, I have a big head start, and that's a good asset.

I learned to not get attached to a spot, and I am always branching out into different areas. I stick to NF land anymore, because it's the only reliable lands to put much effort into, especially pre season. I always keep options, have lots of spots in my back pocket, and familiarize myself with as much country as I can.

every year I have different goals, and hunt different areas according to those goals. do I want to try to kill a big one this year? do I want to fill my tag as fast as possible? every season is different, and I generally don't know the theme until right before the season, or even once the season starts.

another reason I hunt where I do is because it's close to home. I NEVER drive over a half hour to go hunting....unless traffic is bad in town ;)
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Re: What I Like Best

Postby Swede » 11 08, 2017 •  [Post 6]

Let me interpret what Roosiebull just said. He likes his area because the weather is so predictable. When he Is out, and can see the costal mountains; it is going to rain. If he can't see the costal mountains; it is raining. :lol:
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Re: What I Like Best

Postby Lefty » 11 08, 2017 •  [Post 7]

Less than 3 hours away. Few hunters.
Generally the few guys Ive run into are "good " hunters.
Where I hunt the most, did I say Few other hunters
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