First day rifle season. Saw 60 elk!

[raxafarian]

We picked a narrow (about .5 mile) strip of land bordered by a road on one side and private land behind where I had seen elk while scouting. The public land hits the road for about 300 yards providing access. We worked our way up in there in the dark and picked a spot to sit for daylight and could hear elk talking in the meadows below. Even some bugling!!! First time I've really heard it. What a way to start my first ever elk hunt.

We could then see elk a mile or so away down below us. Nothing came up our side of the ridge and about an hour after daylight there was a shot close by, followed by 3 more. Nothing ran our way and we figured it might have been someone youth deer hunting the next ridge over.

We waited another hour and worked our way up the ridge. Tons of sign and beds on top. We worked around the thick stuff to see if we'd jump one (We are beginners! ) and suddenly my brother whispers "Elk!". And there they were... on the next ridge. We counted about 20 with 2 bulls... one a nice 6x6!! They were just feeding and meandering around probably about 1100 yards from us. We tried to figure out if we could circle around and still stay on public land but distances can be deceiving and it was probably too far for my out of shape gut and my old man (yes... I definitely needed to get in better shape). They eventually disappeared over the ridge so we continued circling around saw another herd on the ridge past where we saw the first group and they were probably a mile away.

After another hour we spotted a third herd way up on the private land. We thought they'd head directly toward us downslope but they worked their way along the ridge paralleling the slope and eventually went out of sight.

The last group was spotted on the same ridge as the first but there were more in the group so we assume it was a different one?? Or they combined? Again 2 nice bulls and again... way too far. I'd estimate 1300 yards. They worked their way onto the private land and went out of sight.

My brother insists we circle all the way to the private land and get up on that ridge tomorrow. I figure if we do that we'll see the elk on the ridge we were on instead

I think I'm hooked !!

[cohunter14]

Good luck! Sounds like you are already in a good spot...finding the elk is half the battle!

[under H2O hunter]

thats a lot of elk to cut up.... Maybe you seen 60 them.... Awesome story so how did the rest of the hunt and story go?

[raxafarian]

Well... long story short, nothing to cut up. We saw elk every day but the closest was about 800 yards and I'm not comfortable taking that shot... especially when he was only 40 yards from a private land fence line.

We learned a lot and if I'm lucky enough to draw that area again we will be more prepared!