Wallows and why google earth is useless

[Jhg]

Okay, maybe GE is not useless, but I got your attention, right?

As time goes on the more time I spend boots on ground the more I learn about wallows. And knowing why a wallow is where it is, or why it is being used, can greatly increase your chances on tagging a very good bull.

I hunt two very different gmu's. In one unit I almost never find dry wallows. In the other I find several every time i hunt there. Why is that?
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For the sake of this thread lets put wallows into 3 categories.

1) Historic wallows. Used every year. Big. Nowadays becoming a nocturnal habit as more and more hunters roam the elk woods.

2) Ready mades. These are wallows a bull makes on the fly, so to speak. There may be near last year's wallow, but may also be the first one made in an area. These wallows are generally spur of the moment affairs a bull makes while he starts "feeling it".

3) Stealth wallows. These are exactly as the name implies, but may be a ready made or a historic. You will know right away. If you find a historic stealth wallow consider it the holy grail of wallows. You discovered something special. I find old old abandoned stealth wallows that once were historic but a new road or hunt pressure sucked the life out of them.

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Sitting a ready made is a crap shoot. Unless you catch the bull right when he is in the mood to make them you are going to sit a long while before you see an elk, if ever. Having said that, they can be money IF YOU KNOW WHATS GOING ON.

Sitting a historic wallow is a good bet as long as you have a handle on hunt pressure. No other hunters in the area? Go for it. Keep in mind many times a bull will circle up wind of a wallow like this and bugle at some point in his circle to check if its occupied before he swings in. I have been busted this way as I sat a ground blind. It is very hard to sit a wallow on ground as the wind is what a smart (that means big) bull will use to keep himself alive. So no matter which way the wind blows you are taking a big gamble. I will no longer sit a wallow like this on ground unless it is a very special case.

Stealth wallows are exactly where they need to be for a bull to feel safe. He knows the risks of advertising himself. However, it is important he does so to breed. He makes these wallows based on his own personal sense of safety. These wallows are a pin point for a hunter if he finds them soon enough and that means the hunter has got to get his butt in gear and his boots on the ground. I generally never find these wallows before the season as I do not drag myself all over my hunt areas just before opener. Superstition or a bad practice to stink up your area. You decide. Anyway, I search hard to find these early. This is first week money but you gotta work for it these wallows are a tell tale a bull is staging RIGHT THERE!! So be savvy. He will know you are there unless you are smart with wind and how you read the terrain.

This is why google earth is not the end all of scouting. You have to know where you hunt very well to take advantage of how elk are behaving. Knowing, based on seeing first person, how to hunt an area is what will bring success. Luck has its place, but if you are also knowing, your odds go way up.

How many bulls have we bumped out of an area because we did not really understand how to hunt it? A lot.

7F9AA072-ED80-4C22-BB83-1458D23EFAC8.jpeg (208.45 KiB) Viewed 510 times

[Swede]

Jhg: You make some excellent points. The way I use G.E. is in combination with a good topo map. I have found even the best wallows can be fickle, but with goods trails coming in and a spring they increase your odds for getting a good bull. Wallows in the timber are rare to find on G.E. Bulls often come to one in the late afternoon when the winds are shifting. I have tried to ground blind them wit no success. I have done a lot better from a tree stand.
I hope you get a good discussion here. I am sure different hunters have had varying observations concerning wallows. You write from the perspective of someone that has spent some time messing with wallows.

[Swede]

Here is how I use GE for my E-scouting. I start by researching a good topo map to locate features like springs, saddles, benches and heads of drainages. Once I have them pinpointed, I take down their coordinates and go to G.E. to see what type of vegetative cover is in the area. I like the spring/wallow to be in the timber. I can't hang my stand on a sage bush. This method is hardly foolproof. There are a lot of dead ends, but I have found great spots that way including occasionally finding something special I had no idea would be there. A topo map and G.E. are usually just a good place to begin your scouting. Even if you see a good looking wallow on G.E., don't bet on it until you have see it on the ground. If it is that good looking on G.E. likely when you get there you will see a tree stand already set in place.

[Lefty]

USGS maps are impressive, in water/wallow detail.


I edited Sweded suggestions. I think if you are hunting OOS this is some great advice,,, ( yeah Swede that's a compliment)

1. topo map to locate features like springs, saddles, benches and heads of drainages. Once I have them pinpointed,
2. G.E. to see what type of vegetative cover is in the area.
3. A topo map and G.E. are usually just a good place to begin your scouting.
4. don't bet on it until you have see it on the ground.
5. If it is that good looking on G.E. likely when you get there you will see a tree stand already set in place.


I posted this ears back: a mineral lick used by the elk herd, now it doesn't show on the newer GE. I originally found the lick by following an elk trail. Then looking on GE where the elk were going to feed and bed

elk trails image.JPG (213.09 KiB) Viewed 493 times

[Tuffcrk14]

This is where using historical imagery has really helped me. Sometimes GE has imagery from May/June when EVERYTHING is green and that serves me no real purpose. However, with historical imagery I’ve found from August when most things out there are drier than a corn cob fart, the areas with seeps or springs will still (generally) have some shade of greenery to them. I mark them and sometimes check them during hunting season depending on location. I recently started downloading KMZ/KML files of topo maps onto GE and it has made things more efficient too. You can overlap the topo with the satellite imagery and adjust the intensity of the overlay one way or the other, which I like. On topo maps I look at the head of a drainage or basin where several small streams converge on a nice bench or flat spot at the bottom with good timber cover (and hopefully quakies). If there are no open roads or major trails going up the bottom of the drainage and the drainage isn’t a straight up “V” I get excited about that prospect. Stair Step benches on North slopes seem to be pretty good too, generally the lowest stair step bench will pool up the most water and be a likely place to locate a wallow. These posts have been awesome so far and I hope more follow suit with their tips and tactics for how they find wallows on their platforms.


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