A Typical Early-season Day

[BRazz]

This is kinda like RJ's "scenario" game except way less exciting...

Wanted to put out to you a pretty typical morning for me, and see what you'd do differently. This is particularly a real life experience during the early season. If I am out and hear bugles, that changes everything... But without a bugle to follow, this is pretty much the routine:

I've not done any scouting but have hunted this area many times before. I know that elk love these couple of ridges (~10.5k to 11.2k elevation) with meadows, aspens, and broken timber. But they've also been encountered down lower (9.5k to 10.5k elevation) at different points of the season, can't seem to figure out when or why. Also, they've been up at treeline (11.5k to 12.0k elevation) through much of the summer. I have trail cam pics of some cows and calves and the occasional bull at my only camera, located at a small wet meadow at 10.3k elevation. From this I see that elk are sporadic about their visits here, both time of day and which days... On the hike in to camp last night (from down low, so I haven't yet been up high) I saw some reasonable sign (of various ages through the last couple weeks and months) but nothing alarmingly fresh. Altogether this area is a couple miles by a couple miles unless I want to go to the next drainage over, which is a long hike (and something I'd probably only do after a couple days in this honey hole area).

So in the a.m. I leave camp a good hour before daylight and hike about 20 minutes to those ridges with meadows and aspens. I stop occasionally to listen, and in a couple spots that I think sound should travel well, I blast off a locator bugle. I hear nothing so keep going. I arrive at the upper meadows/ridges around first light or slightly before, and move to a likely spot of activity with some conducive setups and try some cold calling. This is typically cow calls only, pretty light and occasional, varying in frequency and intensity ... on and off for about 15 minutes. I sit 5-10 minutes longer after my last call and then move about 0.25 mile and repeat. All the while I move slowly and quietly, so it might take me a good 10-15 minutes to cover that 0.25 mile.

At the next spot I do roughly the same thing. After another series of minutes of nothing, I let out a light bugle to see if I can get any direction. Nothing answers. I maybe do this whole ordeal again a couple more times, and before I know it it's 8:00 or 8:30 am and the sun is up and any respectable elk I know of is already thinking about bedtime. I've covered the better part of a mile on this ridge top, though there is more country to consider.

So a couple questions. What would you have done differently from the get-go? And if you had gotten to this point, what do you do now?

Thanks all!

[Swede]

I don't read anything that you did wrong. The thing I would do differently is go to a tree stand at a well used spring. Maybe I would have slept in for another half hour.

[Mathewsz7-elkridge]

Maybe spend more time at your cold calling setups. Never been before but I am working on the fourth read of the playbook. Pretty sure elknut says to stay up to a hr on these early season setups.

[Ryan Conkle]

If the bulls' are not vocalizing much, I believe that this would be a good time of year to use an advertising sequence and some light raking, I like to hang around at a set-up as such for a little while longer. I also like to cover a lot of ground until I at least get into some fresh sign or something that leads me to believe that elk are close by.

[cohunter]

Looks like a typical early-season day and the elk aren't talking much. I'd do exactly as you did. If I'd just experienced the start you just described, I might head to vantage point to see if I can glass something up. Or, if I'm confident there are elk nearby, I'd try sneaking into a good ambush point as they head back to a known bedding area. The elk aren't always vocal.

[BRazz]

Thanks for the feedback.

One more follow-up thought: how many miles do you usually cover in a day? Do you troll for bugles the whole way?

For me, I usually give a couple bugles from camp before I leave in the dark, often around 5 am. Then if nothing answers I cover about 0.5 miles give or take and try again. I try to be in a good spot at first light so I have a chance at any silent elk that won't give away their location. All in all I cover only a couple miles of huntable country (though the actual hiking is more since I don't walk in straight lines).

[CurlyTail]

What you are doing sounds great.

Some ideas -

Keep hunting until 11am. 8:30 is way to early to throw in the towel.

Try to identify potential bedding areas in your honey hole and do some cold calling around them late morning.

Try to create some excitement - maybe an advertising sequence for 20 min. or so, maybe some lost calf mews on and off for several minutes. If the Elk are not there, you are not going to spook anything trying.

If the Elk are sporadic in this area, you may need to find another couple of areas to hit as well. But keep coming back to your honey hole every 3-4 days or so. You just need to find the Elk. If it is totally quiet in your area - they probably are not there. Unless you hear the Elk or see fresh droppings or tracks, keep searching.

Try some night time bugling to see if you can locate the Elk

Just some ideas

[one_elk]

Take a set of antlers and do some rattling, it can be productive and of course some times it's not productive at all but it fun and can keep you out in the woods longer....

[Mathewsz7-elkridge]

Take a set of antlers and do some rattling, it can be productive and of course some times it's not productive at all but it fun and can keep you out in the woods longer....

Do you take deer antlers and hit them harder?

[Lefty]

I believe we all need to adapt to where we are hunting.
I hunt in grizzle country the local CO was always checking to see if we had bear spray. First night I had a bull bugle and bark at camp about 11:00 Pm maybe 80 yards away.
I dress slowly listening for morning sounds. I start hunting just on the other side of a thicket 200 yards from camp. So Im out about 10 minutes before morning shooting light. And I did bump a bull one morning before shooting light.
I glass the openings as a work up a meadow, about shooting light I set up my first calling location. 400 foot more in elevation and drop off the ridge I call again I move slowly sort of still hunting and calling

I was hunting the Idaho Montana border last year We had lots of responses calling the first two Saturdays.

[BrentLaBere]

Looks like a typical early-season day and the elk aren't talking much. I'd do exactly as you did. If I'd just experienced the start you just described, I might head to vantage point to see if I can glass something up. Or, if I'm confident there are elk nearby, I'd try sneaking into a good ambush point as they head back to a known bedding area. The elk aren't always vocal.

I like this^ Id also add to "still hunt" the outskirts of the bedding areas, or transition areas, with the wind in your face. Sometimes that means you will be hunting for an hour or less. But can be the most effective time.