Bull elk -repeatable daybeds

[Jhg]

I don't see this very often. As a matter of fact, only once with enough certainty to know it was for real.

We all know elk have "bedding areas" and they will be using them over time and sometimes, even lay on that comfy little flat spot the size of a short couch more than once. IF they happen to walk by it again.
But as suggested this repeat use is random even in that the elk might prefer the area. But that is not a repeatable daybed, like big wise whitetail bucks use.
Those beds are placed in the exact spot that animal feels most secure. He will return to it day after day after day. Many of the wiser animals stay anchored on these beds until nightfall. They feel safe to leave this little oasis of certain safety only at night.

I hunted (forced by chance) to hunt an over-tagged otc unit one archery. The amount of pressure on the elk must have been immense. Besides the callers, bugling their heads off all day but especially at first light (can you say red flag) there was the bivy hunters who had heard about how great packing your home for 7 days into some hole would be. The meadows off the access 4x trails were filled with campers and tent set ups. I had hunter tracks over my own within 2 hours. That my friend is a lot of hunters covering a lot of country.

The elk went pretty much nocturnal.

I had hunted this unit before during late rifle and so knew it pretty well. On the rim of a good size bowl was a very nasty thicket of dense grown stub fir and alpine whatever. I had previously gotten trapped in there so knew what to expect if I went in again. The difference now was a fire had rolled through a couple years prior. It had spared this snarl but opened up a lot of the access terrain around it to easy walking.
After two days of no elk I targeted this spot to check out since I had nothing to lose.
I went totally whitetail style stalk stealth mode just as soon as I crossed into this hell hole. And I didn't have to go far before I found the first day bed. It really didn't register at the time- honestly I had a lot on my mind about troubles back home and work. I kept drifting along, going at a snails pace, really slow. Every step, every step-over, every foot down was calculated, every dead branch at body level avoided. I had all the time in the world and no where to go and that is the mindset needed to be silent.

I found another well used daybed. After awhile, another. They were all on the same elevation, more or less in a line along the rim of this bowl where just below, the slope got really steep but still held timber. The timber grew in size and height until the bottom. There, a small dribble of a creek snuck its way through a wet and boggy feed flat that was not very wide, maybe 75 yards.
I should have been way more alert to what I was seeing and what it meant. Eventually it dawned on me I was following a line of often used daybeds made by the same animal. It sorta came to me I should start hunting rather than just sneaking. I should have an arrow nocked, for example and be scanning ahead with my optics.

But I didn't and I should have known better for when I heard a twig snap 20 yards ahead of me and saw one of the nicest 6x bulls in recent memory I was not ready. He saw me first, that being my first mistake. Not having an arrow ready my second. It took a moment for him to adjust his headgear to clear the rats nest of branches he had lifted it into. Then, spinning and loading his muscled body peeled off into the void that was the steep timber below him, sounding like someone had rolled a giant boulder down into the timber.
I walked to where he had been standing, my adrenalin spike draining out and leaving me pretty crestfallen. What made it such a bitter pill was I knew better. I knew you had about one chance on a pressured bull like this and I had burned mine.


Here is a shitty picture of the bed he stood up from when I bumped him from it.

811D6427-19FF-4C11-8277-F2A3578AC77E.jpeg (115.38 KiB) Viewed 1526 times

[saddlesore]

I have encountered areas as that also, but as you experienced, bump him once and he won't be back there the next day or week. Another bull may move in,but more than likely you scent will linger for awhile and the area won't be used. Could those several beds have been made by a bull and few cows?

[Jhg]

Not cows. Very different. His urine tag was there and the rubs-just one or two small ones each bed usually. Same tracks.
He was above an area the cows would feed into every evening/night. He would go down in the dark and meet up. (I am supposing)
I saw him when scouting that summer in a nearby area that IMO was too hot and sparse feed to be where a big bull would choose to locate. But there he was fat and no one the wiser.

[Swede]

This is what I have observed along these lines: Elk will use a certain bedding place when they are in a general area. They may take up to a couple of weeks to return after the leave. Other elk may come and go while they are gone. I have not observed elk avoiding an area I was in an hour earlier. They will come down the trail I walked to get to my tree stand. Elk move around a bedding area as the sun shifts. They like to stay in the shade, so they get up and move from time to time to avoid the direct sun. When they get up, they will rake a tree or even go to water and then return. I do not know if elk have any ownership in a particular bed or not. They move around in the bedding place and chew their cud. As you observed, it does not take much to get them to leave in a hurry.

[Lefty]

Early season We had heard a bull bugle a number of days from the same area.
Previous years there had been beds in the same 100 yard area. A lazy midday bugle and we were on our way. We spotted the bedded bull,.. Made a plan.
Andrew stalked with in 40 yards and set up. The plan was for him to move into position and wait for a shot

45 minutes pass. I slip over the ridge, from 90 yards away from the bull and make a quiet mew down into another draw. The bull stood up, and trotted away

[>>>---WW---->]

As I write this, I'm looking out my living room window at a band of 28 elk laying on the hill side about a mile from my back door. They have been using that same bedding area for at least 5 days out of every week for the past month. They feel secure there and unless they get buggered out, I expect them keep using that same hill side for the rest of the winter so long as they have food and water and feel secure there.

So the question is, do elk use repeatable day beds ? You darn toot'n they do. Do they use the same exact bed? Probably not! But they will use the same repeatable area so long as the feel secure there.

I never hunt elk in their known bedding areas. The only exception might be on the very last day of my hunt. If you bump them out of there, you'll most likely be trying to relocate them for the remainder of your hunt.

[Lefty]

,,,! But they will use the same repeatable area so long as the feel secure there..

I glassed an area off and on this year. The elk generally have winds in their favor and with a view

[Swede]

I don't think view is important to elk. I have found them is some of thick areas where you can't slip in quietly and seeing one for 50 feet is impossible.

[Jhg]

I knew a bull once....
that preferred old old rotten downed trees. The kind that are more soft reddish punky material than tree. He would paw it apart and lay on the soft, cool mattress of spongy wood.

Then there is this wallow with a view. Nice spot for a tent, or cabin!

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[Swede]

Those Promatory places that Lefty thought were good lookout spots, may serve that purpose some, but they are mainly sentinel locations for their nose. With elk in their bedding location during the day, diurnal winds rise and inform them of anything approaching from below. We have read where Elknut and others tell us that elk often bed about 3/4 the way up a slope. That is true. I do not think seeing things is all that important since any place where they can see out from is also visible to predators which commonly have better vision.
It has been commented on many times that when the pressure is on, elk go to the most awful jumbled up place they can find. They can't see out, but you can get in and surprise them either. If you venture in, all you will find is their bed or you may hear them crashing away as they leave.

[7mmfan]

I knew a bull once....
that preferred old old rotten downed trees. The kind that are more soft reddish punky material than tree. He would paw it apart and lay on the soft, cool mattress of spongy wood.

802DA774-EFD0-4E1A-A294-8ABC805748AE.jpeg

This kind of materials is exactly where I look for blacktail in western wa. They will seek out old rotten logs to paw up and bed on. Cedar and fir specifically if its available. When I walk up to clearcut and begin glassing, I spend my first 15-20 minutes just looking for red spots in the cut. I usually find deer in them.

[>>>---WW---->]

The very best elk sign is the ones you see through your binoculars or spotting scope. I spend a lot of time behind my glass.