Tips for roosevelt elk?

[RadSav]

Not sure if what the WA gamies have in their trucks is available to the general public.  But a few years ago during turkey season I asked a gamie if he knew where some turkeys were headed.  He pulled up a sweet topo map on his dash computer and we figured it out.  That was the best digital map program I've seen!  It even had the Indian reservation boundaries accurate...that was a first

[RadSav]

Back when we could shoot bulls on the eastside I hunted the Manastash a lot.  Along with about a thousand other hunters!  I was new to WA and had limited knowledge of what to expect my first year.  So I scouted and scouted all summer finding a hot spot with a lot of bull sightings, plenty of rubs and overall great country.  I talked CL into going with me to my new HOT spot opening day.  We had a bull hot to trot right at first light.  All we needed to do was get him to cross a small opening and he would be in bow range.  About half way across he stops and jerks his head uphill.  Three hunters are running across the skyline trying to get between us and the bull.  After he busted hunters started running from everywhere chasing that bull like kids after the ice cream truck!

OK, off to spot #2...same result, spot 3...repeat!  What the heck?  Didn't anyone in Washington know the difference between an elk bugle and a hunter's bugle?  If they did they just didn't care and relished in trying to beat us to the elk whether they were successful or not...and in all cases - NOT!!  We knew there were elk here, we knew there were bulls here, and we knew hunters were chasing these elk with vengeance.  So we spent the rest of the afternoon driving around marking down on my topo all the trucks, camps and hunters we could see in the area.  We then drove to the highest ridge top we could find, laid the map down on the hood of the truck and asked each other, "We are scared elk.  Where are we going to go to get away from Romper Room?"

That evening we dropped down to the edge of a hole and I made a few loud cow calls down into what later became our Hell Hole.  There was an immediate response and before we could even get off our perch we had a bull directly below us!  We had found "The Spot!"  And for the next three years we would hunt it exclusively all to ourselves experiencing some of the best elk hunting Washington State has to offer.  All because of a little thought, observation and a good map.

[huntingbaldguy]

Great story.

[mrgoodwrench]

Learn what a fresh elk track looks like, and which end points forward.  After that, just follow the damn things until you get a shot.  They'll take you through every type of brush and timber around, but if daylight doesn't run out, you'll see them.  If it does, come back the next day and pick them up again.  If the logging roads are open for driving, you can cover lots of ground watching the ditchline for tracks.  It is amazing how many 'serious' elk hunters you'll run into who don't notice fresh tracks.  If they don't see elk in the clearcuts they can't figure out where they are. 

[grade-creek-rd]

Pick up the Dec/Jan issue of Successful Hunter Magazine (if you do the electronic suscription you can get the last back issue)...it has a well written feature article all about Roosevelts Elk and highlights Washington State.

G-C-R

[grundy53]

Like was said before, if there is a good population of elk then there will be a good population of hunters. However, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. The more a herd moves the better the odds you have of running into them. Also, if you think about it would you rather hunt an elk in their normal stomping grounds where they feel comfortable. Or would you like to hunt them where they get pushed to and they are unfamiliar and maybe not so comfortable. The group of guys I hunt with hunt hard and are usually pretty successful and honestly opening weekend is our least successful period. We usually do better the week after opening weekend. When they have been pushed a little bit and they are out of their comfort zone. Also, don't get to worried about getting away from roads. In the logging areas of western Washington the road systems are so intertwined you can hardly get away from one road when you hit another but that isn't a big deal. Most of the elk we kill you can hear rigs driving by.

[RadSav]

Like was said before, if there is a good population of elk then there will be a good population of hunters. However, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. The more a herd moves the better the odds you have of running into them. Also, if you think about it would you rather hunt an elk in their normal stomping grounds where they feel comfortable. Or would you like to hunt them where they get pushed to and they are unfamiliar and maybe not so comfortable.

Give me comfortable elk in there safe zone and zero hunters any day over elk out of their comfort zone and a bunch a yahoos messing up the enjoyment.  Just like fishing...I'd rather catch one fish a day on the river by myself that a dozen fish a day in a crowd.  There's more to life than filling a tag.  But luckily elk are stupid enough you can kill one either way you choose.

[grundy53]

Like was said before, if there is a good population of elk then there will be a good population of hunters. However, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. The more a herd moves the better the odds you have of running into them. Also, if you think about it would you rather hunt an elk in their normal stomping grounds where they feel comfortable. Or would you like to hunt them where they get pushed to and they are unfamiliar and maybe not so comfortable.

Give me comfortable elk in there safe zone and zero hunters any day over elk out of their comfort zone and a bunch a yahoos messing up the enjoyment.  Just like fishing...I'd rather catch one fish a day on the river by myself that a dozen fish a day in a crowd.  There's more to life than filling a tag.  But luckily elk are stupid enough you can kill one either way you choose.

That's all fine and good but very hard to find hunting modern elk season in western Washington.  Especially if you have never done it. My point was that you can still be successful despite of/because of hunting pressure.

[RadSav]

That's all fine and good but very hard to find hunting modern elk season in western Washington.  Especially if you have never done it. My point was that you can still be successful despite of/because of hunting pressure.

Agreed