Last Weekend Scouting

[Harmy]

Two more weeks till my Muzzy opener. This last weekend was my last scouting trip before heading out. Spent most of the day Saturday climbing to a peak which looked down over a bowl about 1.5 miles in diameter. Wanted to just sit there and glass. But it was full of cattle so I decided to head down and visit all the water holes. Not much elk sign but I did pick up a small rag shed for my kids. Went back up to the peak and glassed the neighboring high meadows and openings between aspens in the adjacent peaks. This would be about 9000 to under 10000 feet. Nothing. Really frustrating so I headed down and back to the truck. As I was driving out I looked down the canyon and across two ridges about a mile away and at about 7000 feet. 4 nice bulls. What, it was 80 degrees. They were supposed to be up high... I whipped out the spotting scope and watched for the last 5 minutes of light. Looked like two smaller bulls (5x5 I am guessing as I could see horns and spreads but could not count tines at that distance). Two of them were locking horns and the big one was pushing the littler one around. The little one jumped back and ran up about 20 yards. The big one went off bugling (could see it but not hear it-could even make out his chuckling). Drove 2 hours to a different area I have been wanting to visit and went down into the thick stuff early morning. On the way in I glassed another solitary bull grazing across the waist high scrub. Again about 7000 to 7500 feet elevation. My destination was the opposite direction so I headed into the thick stuff. Came across one of the most amazing wallows I have ever seen:

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There were actually three of these wallows right next to each other at about 15-25 feet apart. Every one had lots of activity. During my investigation and looking for fresh sigh I noticed 2 legged tracks (damn). Then I looked up and there were three distinct old wood tree stands (all empty). Dang. Obviously I wasn't the first one to find these... I left and traversed at the same elevation. About 150 yard away I found another water source which had much more water and no wallow. More importantly, fresh sign, no human tracks, and no tree stands. Interesting..

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May just head back to this spot some evening. I then hiked around for a couple of miles and didn't find anything of interest excep lots of cattle sign. Damn cows...

Of course, it never fails that every time I go out elk scouting I also run into moose (6th time this season). A nice one at that-20 feet away. Biggest one I have ever seen in Utah.

2nd Water Moose.jpg (107.51 KiB) Viewed 1696 times

[hornart]

Good luck on your hunt,,liked the picture and story

[Bullnuts]

Sounds like you have a nice place lined up. I wouldn't worry too much about high elevations since you've got them located at 7500 feet now and that's probably where they'll stay for a while. There are probably cows down there and that's what the bulls are after. The wallows look good, but they're dry so I wouldn't but too much stock in them. I would follow the good water source a ways and see if you can find another wallow that is wet and torn up and then I would sit on that baby all day long.

[Harmy]

Actually, the wallows were very wet and muddy but with very sparse standing water. Just didn't show up well on camera. Should have taken more photos. This water source is at about 8500 feet and is one of about 6 spots I have selected to focus on in two weeks.