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Elk Guts

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Elk Guts

Postby Swede » 02 05, 2020 •  [Post 1]

Has anyone ever watched what comes around to clean up your elk guts? Do you know that likely you have created a hub of activity for a few days that starts about a day after you make your kill?
Sometimes the elk die very near my tree stand and I will go back and watch the area after filling my elk tag. I have never shot at a bear, but could have many times. Coyotes and birds are common visitors.
If you pull the guts up under your tree stand, or relocate your stand over the guts you might get a chance to pee on a bear. If you do, then post about your experience and maybe RJ will make you an honorary Swede. :lol:
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Re: Elk Guts

Postby wawhitey » 02 05, 2020 •  [Post 2]

Youve got me thinking about this bear peeing thing. Not a lot going on in july huntingwise. Its illegal to bait bears here in washington, but if youre not hunting them??? Maybe in july i could dump a couple bags of sweet cob under one of my tree stands, drink a gallon of tea in the morning, then climb up into my stand and wait for my opportunity. I could even wear a go pro.
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Re: Elk Guts

Postby 7mmfan » 02 05, 2020 •  [Post 3]

wawhitey wrote:Youve got me thinking about this bear peeing thing. Not a lot going on in july huntingwise. Its illegal to bait bears here in washington, but if youre not hunting them??? Maybe in july i could dump a couple bags of sweet cob under one of my tree stands, drink a gallon of tea in the morning, then climb up into my stand and wait for my opportunity. I could even wear a go pro.


Pretty sure PETA would firebomb your house if you posted a video of that. Not that that should stop you, just fair warning.
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Re: Elk Guts

Postby wawhitey » 02 05, 2020 •  [Post 4]

Peta would firebomb my house for many things ive done. And that goes for every one of us on here. Screw them.
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Re: Elk Guts

Postby WapitiTalk1 » 02 05, 2020 •  [Post 5]

Ha, yeah.... returning to gut piles can be interesting to say the least. It took us 3 1/2 trips to get the majority of my elk out this past year (on that last trip, if you remember my story, brer bear had gotten to the last two hanging meat bags, so we came out light on that trip). On each trip back in/down, there was evidence of increased critter activity. I feel like I'm giving back/paying it forward by leaving a bunch of tasty snacks for the carnivores and birds.

I've told this story before but will share it again here; it kind of goes with the OP's gut pile theme ;). I arrowed a morning bull a few years back that was pretty close to the road from where it dropped. We were able to bone it out, get it up to the road (perhaps 1/3 mile up), and get it down to the processor that same day! Anyhow, a few days later Joe and I took off from our base camp and did the same wide circle starting down a long ridge, eventually dropping down into the bottom of a long deep draw to start our hunt "up" towards where I had shot that bull. It's a decent spot that obviously, holds a bull or two on occasion. We stopped, set up, and did some calling at several spots on our way up the draw. As we got closer to where the bull had met its fate a handful of days earlier, we could hear and see the ravens.... We could hear them squawking a few hundred yards up the hillside at the kill site, and, could hear them chuckling as they flew high just above the tree canopy packing some tasty snacks back to their house. "Well, you never know", I told Joe and we set up to do some calling. At this set up, Joe was pretty close to me.. perhaps only 25 yards away. After a few cow calls, we waited... listening and watching. I went through this drill a few times and then threw out a nice three note bugle with a handful of chuckles at the end. That is when it happened...…. A rather large object bumped, cracked, bumped down through the trees and landed with a thunk between Joe and I. At the same moment, we heard some big bird chatter high above us. Upon closer scrutiny, we found a large chunk of scrap meat that was too much for the flying raven to handle, on the ground between us. We figured either the raven just couldn't grip it any longer, or...…., perhaps it was some kind of targeted strike aimed at us :lol:.

I plan on doing some tree standing for elk this fall (finally gonna put this into the mix). Perhaps I'll get lucky and have the opportunity to surprise a bear (or deer, or yote, or cat, or bear) walking below one of the stands 8-)
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Re: Elk Guts

Postby wawhitey » 02 05, 2020 •  [Post 6]

Gut piles do bring a lot of action. In december i put my bones and trimmings from my cougar about 60 yards behind my house. I set up a trail cam on the opposite side of the bones, facing my house. Thinking maybe i could whack a bobcat or yote that came to investigate, just hang my rifle out my living room window. Well, heres what came in to the cougar bones, go figure.
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Re: Elk Guts

Postby Indian Summer » 02 05, 2020 •  [Post 7]

I took a friend’s son out muley hunting with his bow. He killed a small buck but it took me until the next day to find it. By then a pack of wolves had beat me to it. So the day after that I made a sneakier approach. Whammo!
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Re: Elk Guts

Postby wawhitey » 02 05, 2020 •  [Post 8]

Indian Summer wrote:I took a friend’s son out muley hunting with his bow. He killed a small buck but it took me until the next day to fund it. By then a pack of wolves had beat me to it. So the day after that I made a sneakier approach. Whammo!



Another wapititalk foul! Thats 2 marks against you this year already sir, pics or it didnt happen! One more such shenanigan and there will be consequences!
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Re: Elk Guts

Postby Tigger » 02 05, 2020 •  [Post 9]

Do you ever see those cats from the house? Not sure if that would be cool or it would be a little spooky (if you had small children or pets).

Joe, Joe, Joe. Maybe you missed?
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Re: Elk Guts

Postby WapitiTalk1 » 02 05, 2020 •  [Post 10]

Ya, geez... that's twice Indian Summer mentioned getting a wolf and didn't post pictures. I was teetering on putting him on double secret probation but decided to do some site surfing. I was able to find this older picture of Joe with a wolf? I'm no expert but this may have been photoshopped. At any rate, this is the image I found. See how cool I am, helping a fellow member (a MOD at that) find an old picture and post it up ;)

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Re: Elk Guts

Postby wawhitey » 02 05, 2020 •  [Post 11]

Tigger wrote:Do you ever see those cats from the house? Not sure if that would be cool or it would be a little spooky (if you had small children or pets).

Joe, Joe, Joe. Maybe you missed?


Yes, twice now. One was watching me through my living room window when i was cleaning the house, another stalked up on me while i was doing yard work. My local lions seem to be a bit more fearless with humans than the cats out in the hills.

Oh and another time i ran right past a mama lion about 20 yards away when the neighbor dog treed her big grown cub, so i guess 3 times. That was interesting. Drug her dog off the tree and got it in her house, the dogs fur was sticking up like it stuck its tongue in a light socket.
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Re: Elk Guts

Postby Lefty » 02 05, 2020 •  [Post 12]

Great post

Great stories.

As a trapper w use to put out carcass piles
Generally for entertainment
In Minnesota lots of crows
In Washington state I placed beaver carcasses just out the back door
I loved it when the coyotes quarreled and causedaruccus under the swung set slide and play house
Utah I snared fox near the piles from waterfowl and big game my daughters quite enjoyed dumping game carcasses we would drive in and the bald eagles and hawked would line the fence posts
Our small pasture in Idaho big game bones for the coyotes fox and magpies
This year the bald eagles started hitting the goose Carcasses
Years past I’ve set trail cams
And captured coyotes skunk magpies badger red fox
Last week before we left I set two cameras ,I really want a trophy eagle pic

Last fall Andrews little buck had magpies crows and ravens on it instantly I’m sure the little bear had it clean clean clean before noon the next day
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Re: Elk Guts

Postby Lefty » 02 05, 2020 •  [Post 13]

wawhitey wrote:Youve got me thinking about this bear peeing thing. Not a lot going on in july huntingwise. Its illegal to bait bears here in washington, but if youre not hunting them??? Maybe in july i could dump a couple bags of sweet cob under one of my tree stands, drink a gallon of tea in the morning, then climb up into my stand and wait for my opportunity. I could even wear a go pro.

Well Swede backs out on such challenges
But I don’t think you. Even needed to be double dog dared
Set some trail cams on video and leave your lunch under a tree

I have still photos of a lion peeing on me way up in a tree, I guess I scared the pee right out of her.
I also snagged a little Alaskan black bear boar on a # 4 blue and silver Blue. Fox spinner but he broke off
I don’t think we need to see everything but a yellow stream on even a little bear sounds ,,, entertaining
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Re: Elk Guts

Postby Indian Summer » 02 06, 2020 •  [Post 14]

That one unfolded in an interesting way. I parked before the spot where the road goes up over the last hump before winding down the other side. They were below me, about 6 of them but kinda dar. I did my best but missed. All but one took off running sidehill to the right around the corner. But one ran straight uphill.

I ran back to the truck and flew down the road. Around the horseshoe bend and then another turn. I went a little way and stopped to look over the edge of the road. It was 50/50 open and timbered. It qas pure luck that he was standing there as soon as I looked over the hill. But he saw me and turned around and ran to the right back the way he had come from and toward the rest of the pack. But the road made a big curve so what was a 75 yard sprint for me was several hundred yards for him on the slope below me. I found an open strip of grass about 40 yards wide and got the gun ready. I wasn’t sure if I was ahead of him or not. But I was set up with the safety off aimed at about the elevation he was at. Sure enough here he came at a medium paced walk. All black. One shot in the mid section with an elk load and he never took another step. The Nosler partition blew a hole the size of a baseball out the other side. I always wondered how many elk that saved.

The above story is purely fictional and the names have been changed to protect the innocent.
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Re: Elk Guts

Postby Indian Summer » 02 06, 2020 •  [Post 15]

I guess that once you have a wolf checked by state biologists the list of successful hunters is public information. A few months later I got a message from a friend that said check this out. It was a link to the home page of a wolf lover website. At the top it said below are the names of the murderers who took the lives of our beloved brothers. My name was the first on the list. Interestingly I knew 3 other people on the list. I wondered if I’d ever hear anything from the anti hunters but I never did. Lucky for them. I might have made the list twice! :lol:
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Re: Elk Guts

Postby Lefty » 02 08, 2020 •  [Post 16]

Indian Summer wrote:I guess that once you have a wolf checked by state biologists the list of successful hunters is public . My name was the first on the list. Interestingly I knew 3 other people on the list. I wondered if I’d ever hear anything:


While in Yellowstone some buggy wolf guy had accused a fellow of shooting one wolf in the park
The huggy wolf guy made a big stink over and over how this wolf never left the park
I heard both sides
The wolfie was so in love with the wolf ; to me it was a case of hunter harassment
Montana did an investigation and the feds because of Yellowstone
The hunter had to take nvestigators to the scene matching the photograph of the location of the kill still unsatisfied dug through the snow to find blood that was dna matched

But maybe a non Montana resident or a Harleyrider was your out

A big deal was made about the grizzlie tags that were awarded was a bit of a hassle
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Re: Elk Guts

Postby wawhitey » 02 09, 2020 •  [Post 17]

Indian Summer wrote:I guess that once you have a wolf checked by state biologists the list of successful hunters is public information. A few months later I got a message from a friend that said check this out. It was a link to the home page of a wolf lover website. At the top it said below are the names of the murderers who took the lives of our beloved brothers. My name was the first on the list. Interestingly I knew 3 other people on the list. I wondered if I’d ever hear anything from the anti hunters but I never did. Lucky for them. I might have made the list twice! :lol:



Nobodys going to give you a hard time. The badass animal rights activists just comb social media looking for teenage girl hunters to harrass and threaten.
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