Free: Contests & Raffles.
What season are you hunting? Finding elk is more difficult in theory because they are not as widespread throughout the state, and tend to have larger home areas so odds of missing them is more likley. Going out now is going to be the best time to find elk IMO. If archery hunting they shouldn't be to far from where you find them now, on opening day. Pressure will hide them and you will be surprised at how well a dozen cow sized critters can vanish for days. But they don't evaporate, they just have to be dug out. Muzzy and rifle season their patterns will change a bit again as presssure dictates. If hunting high country elk in the later seasons, follow the snow below areas you may have found elk earlier in the year. Also don't get to caught up in the "physicality" of it. Yes being in super shape wont hurt. And on alot of hunts is a requirement. But alot of "old and slow" guys are superb elk killers by A) not moving so much, especially in areas with elk. and B) making the right moves at the the right time.
Myself I grew up in the Midwest archery hunting from a tree stand for whitetails, but now that I have moved out west learning to elk hunt has been a huge challenge. I have hunted for four years now and every year I feel my skills have improved every year. You can read every book out there but elk hunting comes down to watching your wind and moving slow. Those two things I feel are the easiest to monitor and have the biggest impact on seeing game. There is nothing like archery hunting elk in September and I wouldn't trade the bugles and sex-driven craze of the rut for any other type of hunting.
The annual success rate for elk hunters in Washington is roughly 7%, while the deer success rate is roughly 25%. As the saying goes, if elk hunting were easy, it would be called deer hunting.A lot of elk hunters go camping or driving for a few days in fall. They escape their wives (or husbands) and jobs for a while, see some woods, and go home happy. I'm not one of those guys, so I run, lift, and spend a lot of time on elliptical machines year-round so that when I need to be 900 vertical feet higher at a brisk jog, I can do it.I have a hunting buddy that is chronically out of shape for elk season. He *hurts* after a couple of days in the steep and deep, but guts it out. Watching him pack quarters up a steep hill is painful. He takes the mind-over-matter approach, and has killed more than his share of elk over the years.I've harvested elk five out of the last six years. If I wasn't in shape, it would have been two of the last six. Those two, though, were "lucky." I was in the right place at the right time early on opening day for one and the second day for the other.