New to Elk Hunting 2019 - What do you recommend for making it a FUN experience?

[outdooraddict]

elksnout summed it up, i love the wall tent, campfire, and laughing and stories of "the way things used to be"  i can hunt alone, but like elksnout said "camping alone sucks"  hunting is just the bonus, and well if u lay down on a skid road and take a nap in the afternoon, or just sit and look around for a couple hours, then who cares, you might be one of the only peopel to lay eyes on that rock or specific tree, take it all in.

[Parasite]

I am exactly in the same boat. I have purchased the combo tags already. Western Archery elk. I plan to run a small hot tent. Preferably keeping camp on my back. At the moment I am not in shape for that but I am working on it. My expectations are not high. Although I'm learning to call. I want to be in the thick of it....public land, back pack hunting, with my bow. I will call it a success to here bugles! I research the sh*t out things. So this is keeping me busy. 😂  we moved here in September. I'm just basically wanting to get and explore. Been hunting my entire life (36) in Missouri. The mountains are new.

If you or anyone would like to meet up sometime for coffee, or a drink. I'm open to meeting new people. It's early in the year so no commitments yet 😂.
I have always heard finding a good hunting partner is harder than finding a spouse!
 



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I'll take you up on that offer when I get back. I'm in Okinawa until the 15th. I moved here from Southern Illinois, so you'll probably miss the big whitetails just like I do. I am looking forward to hunting Rios again, and Merriams for the first time. As for elk, I'm pretty sure I want to chase elk on the west side first.

[msg]

Wow, you want to purchase a tag and license but not kill an elk because you might have to butcher and pack out. That so does not compute. I am sure you could find several people on this site to help if the need arose. I can so remember walking up to my very first elk. My knees were jellow.

[msg]

If you want fun, kill an elk. I once gutted, butchered and packed out a forked horn bull in one day by myself. A mile and a quarter from animal to trailhead. Pure uncut fun. Wish I could do that now. My hunting partner chewed my ass one year for mentioning the word vacation. He abruptly told me that this is no vacation and that we are here to kill elk. That we did for many years due to summer and preseason scouting. We had the best fun on earth

[Boomerboy87]

I feel like that's all up to you. You can be obsessed and do your research and find out what works with your personality all the while working your version of fun into your own method or we could tell you how we feel about our version of how much fun elk hunting is. 

[elkboy]

elksnout summed it up, i love the wall tent, campfire, and laughing and stories of "the way things used to be"  i can hunt alone, but like elksnout said "camping alone sucks"  hunting is just the bonus, and well if u lay down on a skid road and take a nap in the afternoon, or just sit and look around for a couple hours, then who cares, you might be one of the only peopel to lay eyes on that rock or specific tree, take it all in.

Well said! It is all about time with friends and family, connecting with nature, and scanning every patch of timber for elk. Meat or antlers are a bonus.

[Parasite]

I'm not sure if I'll even be ready to hunt elk this fall now. I just got back from a month long trip to California and then in July I go to San Antonio, TX for a month for business. Damn work is getting in the way.

[Fullabull]

Ok, I've only hunted the west side but, if I wanted to have fun to start. I would hunt the east side, Archery and Learn to call. On the east side branch bulls are not legal so they will respond more and there is nothing like having bulls taking back at you. On the west side you need to be a like more experienced in calling as branch bulls are legal. Just my two cents.

[Skyvalhunter]

I agree about learning to call as it is fun calling in other hunters