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It’s just true!!!

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It’s just true!!!

Postby Elkhunttoo » 01 18, 2023 •  [Post 1]

Who would have thunk it! Swede is right ;) . Last year some time swede posted about being an invisible man. He was right!!! As I sat in my stand this past season over and over again I just kept telling myself, he was right, I’m invisible! I will explain the first scenario.

Sept 8, I crawled into my stand late afternoon, all even I had game around me. Nothing in bow range but I was able to see bits and pieces of elk and some deer. On the 9th I crawled into my stand about right at sun up. This stand is a solid 45 minute hike in. About 1/2 hour after I’m in my stand a hear a bugle. Right above me in the draw. Then another bugle. Then a 4 point buck crashes down the draw about 50 yards above me with no shot opportunity. He is followed by only a minute or two by a coyote on the same path. I think maybe it will scare the elk! Nope! Another bugle! I can tell the elk are going to the bedding area 150 yards above the water I’m sitting. We have a stand there but no time to move to it. Then I can see parts of elk bodies moving through the timber. Right to the bedding area right at about 9. Perfect. They will come get water. Thermals are still moving down as it’s a nice cool morning but it’s going to warm up and the water will be my ticket. 15 minutes after the elk bed, crash boom bang! Here they come. The cows crash through 50 yards above me and the bull with another cow or two go below me. I video the ones above and only saw a few glimpses of the ones that went below!!! What just happened!!! I sit for another 10 plus minutes when I hear coming into the bedding area the humans. They start calling and calling. 20 minutes later they wait. And listen. Elk never answered them once! Because they had already smelled them and they had already ruined the day.

The next morning my wife was with me. We decided to come in from the top this day to sit the stands. Ran into the guys from the day before. They were excited about the experience they had had the day before. They had seen our stand in the bedding area. They told me about how close they had gotten. They had no clue that I watched the whole thing play out and they had no clue how not close they were.

As I sat day after day my confidence grew. Even on days I felt like nothing was even around me I still felt more confident in that stand then out of it. I definitely had my chances this last year. One branch that I didn’t cut down before the season that was about 25 feet high that I would have never guessed would cost me a shot cost me shots at 2 bulls. One being a solid 6 point. I did pass up a 5 point at 30 yards that I could have shot at. It was a different year in our area. Very few elk and hardly any cows. It was a warm season and I think very few moved down into the area we have hunted the last few years… I got about 20% of the total pictures on my cameras this year then I have the last two seasons. Yet we were still able to harvest one nice 6 point and a bear this season.

My itch to get back up in that stand is crazy right now. I found two more spots that will almost become my top spots in the area last season. Both have huge potential with stands. We are going to start using tree saddles in all of the new places and not purchase any more stands.

Calling elk is a blast. But being invisible in the woods has a special feeling to it that I came to love this last season! I can wait to get back in the perch!
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Re: It’s just true!!!

Postby Elkhunttoo » 01 18, 2023 •  [Post 2]

FF25BB08-B3BD-4442-8FC5-F93DABB14170.jpeg
FF25BB08-B3BD-4442-8FC5-F93DABB14170.jpeg (147.25 KiB) Viewed 645 times


My brother in laws bull taken from a stand. Only elk he saw this season and it is now on his wall
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Re: It’s just true!!!

Postby Tigger » 01 19, 2023 •  [Post 3]

Oh no. This is not good. Not good at all. Swede with have a big head again! First rule of WapitiTalk...you can say good things about tree stand hunting, but never, EVER give Swede credit or we will have to put up with his shenanigans for months!

I deer hunt from stands. It is amazing how they never see you. Although once in a great while, they see you and you have no idea how.
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Re: It’s just true!!!

Postby Swede » 01 19, 2023 •  [Post 4]

Tree-stand hunting for elk can be very productive. The key is to have a good location, set up right, and be persistent. Many seasons I have filled my tag while hunters from other camps have all gone home empty handed. I know nothing secret. Everything I have learned over 30 years of tree stand hunting has been shared here on this forum. It is also condensed into book form so a person can get it all in a concise package. I have no honey hole.
In the 2021 season our camp of tree stand hunters went two for three on mature elk. It should have been 3 for 3, but my cousin missed on his opportunity or opportunities. He even had one 20 yards in front getting a drink and standing, but he did not see it until it was too late. The camp near ours had six hunters. Five of their hunters went out calling every day of the season. On lady got into a portable blind and got her bull the first morning. She spent the remainder of the season fishing in the pond next to our camp and waiting for her husband or someone to shoot their elk.
I only saw her old Ford pickup once in 2022 and never got a chance to visit. I suspect she had her bull again and was just waiting.
I enjoy seeing elk on the meat pole here and celebrate with every successful hunter. That said, in a way I am glad most elk hunters, like the ones elkhuntoo saw, prefer to stay on the ground and chase off the elk with their calls. If every elk bow hunter went to a tree stand the game commissions would need to change the rules or limit the number of hunters, they issue tags to. Tree-stand hunting done well is just too deadly on elk!
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Re: It’s just true!!!

Postby Lefty » 01 19, 2023 •  [Post 5]

Great thread and great posts.

At times it can be incredibly amazing how one can become invisible.

It does seem however the coyotes tend to pick up on me before anything and everything else does.

Early in the season Andrew and I had been on a calling stand and he motioned to me that I wasn't to call or make any more noises just to stay where I was at.

Over the next hour and a half I could see he was videoing something,
Ended up he was streaming live a couple of elk 5 to 20 yards away from them for an hour and a half.
He was posting on some elk media. He had like 1200 viewers and was texting back and forth with some of the people.
A long long time ago hunting the Klickitat River bottoms in Washington, I spent a few hours as 138 deer walking around me.
I recorded in a journal that day but I passed on easily 20 different bucks, under 30, 40 yards. I ended up the worst case of poison oak you can ever imagine.
I don't recall the number but I had lots of deer literally step or walk around me because my feet were in the way.
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Re: It’s just true!!!

Postby MidwestHunter » 01 28, 2023 •  [Post 6]

Swede wrote:Tree-stand hunting for elk can be very productive. The key is to have a good location, set up right, and be persistent. Many seasons I have filled my tag while hunters from other camps have all gone home empty handed. I know nothing secret. Everything I have learned over 30 years of tree stand hunting has been shared here on this forum. It is also condensed into book form so a person can get it all in a concise package. I have no honey hole.
In the 2021 season our camp of tree stand hunters went two for three on mature elk. It should have been 3 for 3, but my cousin missed on his opportunity or opportunities. He even had one 20 yards in front getting a drink and standing, but he did not see it until it was too late. The camp near ours had six hunters. Five of their hunters went out calling every day of the season. On lady got into a portable blind and got her bull the first morning. She spent the remainder of the season fishing in the pond next to our camp and waiting for her husband or someone to shoot their elk.
I only saw her old Ford pickup once in 2022 and never got a chance to visit. I suspect she had her bull again and was just waiting.
I enjoy seeing elk on the meat pole here and celebrate with every successful hunter. That said, in a way I am glad most elk hunters, like the ones elkhuntoo saw, prefer to stay on the ground and chase off the elk with their calls. If every elk bow hunter went to a tree stand the game commissions would need to change the rules or limit the number of hunters, they issue tags to. Tree-stand hunting done well is just too deadly on elk!


I am curious here, and have never really thought too much about hunting elk from a treestand out west, although it is standard for me on deer in Indiana.

I will have to go through and look at some of your old threads to get some starting info.
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Re: It’s just true!!!

Postby Lefty » 01 29, 2023 •  [Post 7]

MidwestHunter wrote:
Swede wrote:T
I am curious here, and have never really thought too much about hunting elk from a treestand out west, although it is standard for me on deer in Indiana. .


My wife thought I was nuts trying to hunt Idaho/Utah deer from a tree stand.
She and her dad mosyly drove a jeep ( cant do that now) and glassed . I started hunting out of a box blind and pop up ground blind.


The neighbor guy had a huge tree stand for him , his wife and two sons Killing a handful of elk, and bear from the one stand
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Re: It’s just true!!!

Postby Swede » 01 29, 2023 •  [Post 8]

MidwestHunter wrote:I will have to go through and look at some of your old threads to get some starting info.


Check the archives and the tree stand forum for ideas. I think about everything of value I have written in the tree stand hunting R.M elk has been posted in one place or the other. It is interesting that I started hunting elk using tactics I learned from reading accounts from Whitetail hunters. Over the last 30 years I have found there are some differences from deer hunting. There are some things to do and not to do, but for the most part it boils down to; find a good location with a good tree, go up about 25 feet, stay quiet, and wait.
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Re: It’s just true!!!

Postby Elkhunttoo » 02 05, 2023 •  [Post 9]

Sorry Tigger…it’s just true
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