Me and addicted2hunting bombed down to the elk woods Friday night and got an early start Saturday morning. we got on some sign and followed it down the gnarliest hill I've ever been on in terms of steepness. We ended up dropping an easy 2,000 ft in elevation into a creek bottom following nothing but elk trails. That's 2,000 ft in less 2 miles. Very steep. the terrain was so steep that it was literally hand over fist on the way out.
Here's a pic of addicted2hunting holding onto the hill on the way back up:
we didn't hear any bulls bugling at night or on the morning and was just too hot during the day I think. we did try a few cow calls here and there just in case though. we found the remains of a cow and a bull down in the creek bottom.
here's a pic of the kind of torn up trails we were on. And no, this is not a well traveled hiking trail. This is looking up at the trail leading up hill from the creek. it's an elk highway!
We saw two small herds on the way to our area on Friday. The pic below was taken through my binoculars at 500+ yards. We were driving down the highway when I spotted some elk butts way up in a clearcut. turned out to be 5 cows with a couple calves. there was no way for us to get to them but cool to watch non disturbed elk doing their thing. terrible pic but did what I could.
we were both really surprised we didn't at least bump some animals. we were on tons of sign the whole way into the creek bottom and FAR from any other people. We went straight beast mode for the day. Neither of us have a GPS yet so we took a baring at the top of the hill and tied a strip of surveyors tape to a tree. Using nothing but a compass, we got to the creek bottom and back up to the same tree we tied the surveyors tape on. For being the first time either of us had done this, we're glad we weren't incompetent. haha.
We found an alder patch on a bench that was completely torn up. it had what looked like the makings of a wallow once bulls start to frequent the area. The trees were destroyed and literally...no joke...there must be HUNDREDS of rubs on big trees on this bench.
All in all a fun trip. Today we hunted some easier stuff in a familiar unit on the way home. Didn't find anything today. Weekend warrior elk hunts are HARD!!!
