Planning a area of hunt

[lilshootergirl]

I've been looking at the harvest report on elk! 2017! Which numbers will make you choose. For example % of success? Or # of antlered killed? Hunters? Or the other reports that tells how well the herds are doing? Or a number of them together? I really love idaho, but I need to find a area that holds elk that I don't need a horse to get into, or isn't hit hard by wolves, if that's possible?

[Swede]

I look first at the success rate. I am mostly a meat hunter. If I was looking at branched bulls only, I would look at the success on branched bulls. Another thing I consider is number of hunters and the amount of public land available. 1,000 hunters on 10,000 square miles is good. 1,000 hunters on 1,000 square miles is not.
Elknut wrote something about hunting a unit with a very low success rate. If my memory is correct, it is in the 5%-6% range. If you are looking at a unit, that would be a poor one to choose. If you know the unit, and he does, there are often parts of it that can be very good. I know of some places where that is the case.
Sometimes you need to ask local game managers or other knowledgeable folks about select areas or drainages.
Every year there is the question of several elk forums asking which State should I hunt? They know no one is going to tell them exactly where they go, but it is still rather a dumb question. You are more on the right path. What unit or subunit should I hunt, is better. Once you determine the subunit, go there and start asking questions. The more specific the questions the better your answers will be. Tell the game warden or State game official what you are hoping to find. Talk to range or wildlife officers from the Forest. Let them know your abilities and limitations. When will you be hunting and things like that all make a difference.

[Indian Summer]

I use success rates. But I don’t by any means base my chances of success on them. A few years ago I hunted a unit that took 4 points to draw. The success rate was like 34 or 37%. If I just went by that mumber I wouldn’t be jumping for joy because my success rate is around 95%. But I really liked the number because I use it for comparison. The general units I regularly hunt have a rate of about 17% on bulls. So this unit had exactly twice the succes rate. So I figured if I do as well as I do where I’ve been hunting and my chances are double I should be in pretty good shape. In the end I killed a nice 6 point bull but to be honest I felt like luck played a bigger role than I was comfortable with and I couldn’t wait to get back to the areas I knew from experience. If I didn’t have access to some private land in the “better” unit there’s a good chance I would not have killed an elk.

So to answer your question LSG I’d look at the % of success in an area you know something about and then try to pick ones with a better number than that.

My success and the success of some others on this forum will tell you that the old saying that 10% of the hunters kill 90% of the elk is true. I always tell myself that nothing and I mean nothing beats knowledge of a particular area. I firmly believe that if a unit had a 25% success rate and 100 hunters went out and killed 25 elk 20 of them would be killed by hunters who killed one in that area last year, a few would be killed by people who had killed elk consistently in the past but not in that area... and only 1 or 2 would be killed by hunters who were relatively new to the game and new to the area. No matter how much homework those novices did and regardless of the fact that they might be deer hunting machines back home the truth is that the biggest factor in their success was pure luck. The blind squirrel factor. I will assume they worked hard. Blind lazy squirrels will not punch elk tags no matter what!

So aim high! Pick a unit with the highest % you can get a tag in fairly often and then go learn it like your life depended on it. The only thing I’d add to all that is all the numbers in the world aren’t as good as first hand information from a trusted source. I know a Wyoming tag isn’t cheap. But if you kill an elk every time you buy one and it takes 2 or 3 tags to kill one somewhere else which one costs more to get the job done? When my bull is laying on the ground I couldn’t care less what I paid for the license. That never crossrs my mind when I’m cutting the date of kill out on it.

[Swede]

I agree with Joe's take on things. Roosiebull consistently gets elk in as tough an area as most. He knows his area and the elk that live there. Elknut knows his area and the elk that inhabit that area. His gang are tough on the elk population. Others are consistently successful in different area. The key is familiarity with the area and knowing elk. This year I hunted a new area. I had a couple of false starts, but soon narrowed things down and succeeded in killing one. I think knowing what to look for and how to hunt is #1. Knowing the area will help bring things together so you maximize the time you are a dangerous predator. Confidence based on frequent successes will let you be satisfied regardless of the outcome. There is nothing worse for a hunter than to get nothing, and have no sure understanding why.

[lilshootergirl]

Thank you for your reply, it makes sense to me now!

[Old school]

Great advice from 2 elk killers. I totally relate to Joe's scenario. Experience in a unit over the years has to be way up at the top of the list of "reasons for success"

--Mitch