Look Low!

[POk3s]

This is the only forum I dare share this on, and quite honestly I could be way off base as your area could be completely different....BUT here's what I THINK I MIGHT have figured out during my one and only scouting trip. This will be my 9th time hunting elk in the same area so I don't need to scout a lot. Basically I went to my favorite spots and looked to see what the quality of bulls were. Found 3 6 points in one evening and one morning glassing session. Regardless of all that I seemed to have stumbled across some info that may be of use to a lot of you and that was.....NONE of the BULLS I found were higher then mid mountain....none. It's no secret that it's been dry this year. We all know that but we honestly might not have water anywhere else but in the bottoms of valleys. I hiked back into where I was glassing and found 3 different water holes and one wallow last year. 2 of the three were small and I'm guessing they are dried up. One of them was fairly large that I"m guessing still has water and I did spot elk around it but it was all cows. I saw somewhere around 15 bulls in that one morning and evening glassing session and not a single bull was higher then mid mountain. Honestly I don't think they were any higher then 1/3 mountain. I watched them come out from their bedding areas and a few of them looked to have been bedded right on the fridge where the willows meets the pines. I guess I did lie slightly as now that I think about it I saw two spikes with a herd of cows up high on the ridge.

This may change as it gets closer to the rut and the bulls get more active in trying to find cows. I don't know if they were simply "being lazy" in their summer patterns and not traveling very far for water, feed, and bedding or if I stumbled upon a hidden secret. There are a few springs in that area too and I didn't see any bulls at the head of the springs. There is also a spot I can glass up into some avalanche chutes which are technically below timberline but in that area no trees are growing above those chutes. There is green grass and steep country as well as dark timber on the backside. I usually can glass up quite a few groups of elk feeding in those high meadows.....I didn't see a single elk up there.

I basically typed this to help all of you early season guys out. If you're not finding elk in their "usual" feeding and bedding areas don't be afraid to look lower on the mountain. It might just be where the secret lies. I saw 2 bulls feed through the willows last year in 5 days of hunting....in two days of scouting I saw over 10 elk, 7 of them being bulls, feeding in the lowest, greenest, grass they could find and the rest of the bulls weren't much higher then the virtual valley bottom.

[Vanish]

It is pretty similar to what I saw as well. We didn't see any elk above the highest aspens.

The great part? Everyone from other camps was either hunting way low or way high ... we found the elk in the middle. They did not find elk up high and thought they needed to go somewhere else to get even HIGHer! Yay, more space for me.

[ElkNut1]

On hot dry years, find the water, they won't be far off!

ElkNut1

[POk3s]

Vanish sounds nearly identical. I was by no means on the fringes of sagebrush and pines. Was still a ways into the mountains and at 9,000+ feet. I know one thing, if they stay there it just means I have to climb less!