drop camp elk hunt a bust

[vandeman17]

Unless there's a well used trail in the bottom of whatever drainage you're looking at, you navigate the Eagle Caps from the ridge tops. Don't give up elevation unless you have to.

DING DING DING WE HAVE A WINNER!!!!!! My Man. To steep, and deep to start in the bottom every day.

For me, after dropping down in and hunting lower, it killed me hiking back to camp. No idea what the heck I would have done if I would have killed one down there. 

Bone it out hang it in a cool dark place, and call the packer to come and get it.

Bingo. If you paid money for a service, use it. No reason to pack meat up all that vertical when you paid someone to pack for you.

Before the hunt, we were told that he would try to come in and pack it out within a few days if possible. When we texted back and forth while actually up there, he said there was no way to get up to us, even to pack us completely out, until our originally scheduled date unless it was an emergency. Before knowing this, we already said if we killed one, it was going down hill and hung near the river in a cool, shady spot. Little did we know it would have had to hang there for potentially 8-9 days 

[lord grizzly]

Unless there's a well used trail in the bottom of whatever drainage you're looking at, you navigate the Eagle Caps from the ridge tops. Don't give up elevation unless you have to.

yup. elk hunting is about persistence (often anyway) and up hill to hunt everyday i promises will wear you out well before the elk wear out. agin i kinda thought this was 101 stuff. surprising to see how many people think going vertical every day to hunt is productive. i bust my as to get to the top with camp then start running ridges to bedding/feeding areas. cover way more way faster from up there. no way im climbing every morning. especially when all these bottom up road hunters just push them to ya

[theleo]

Unless there's a well used trail in the bottom of whatever drainage you're looking at, you navigate the Eagle Caps from the ridge tops. Don't give up elevation unless you have to.

DING DING DING WE HAVE A WINNER!!!!!! My Man. To steep, and deep to start in the bottom every day.

For me, after dropping down in and hunting lower, it killed me hiking back to camp. No idea what the heck I would have done if I would have killed one down there. 

Bone it out hang it in a cool dark place, and call the packer to come and get it.

Bingo. If you paid money for a service, use it. No reason to pack meat up all that vertical when you paid someone to pack for you.

Before the hunt, we were told that he would try to come in and pack it out within a few days if possible. When we texted back and forth while actually up there, he said there was no way to get up to us, even to pack us completely out, until our originally scheduled date unless it was an emergency. Before knowing this, we already said if we killed one, it was going down hill and hung near the river in a cool, shady spot. Little did we know it would have had to hang there for potentially 8-9 days

Hauling meat constitutes an emergency.
Order of packing importance for most outfitters:
1) Packing people/supplies in.
2) Packing meat out.
3) Packing people out.
4) Packing people out early for non emergencies.

Leaving meat hanging to long introduces some legal liabilities that outfitters don't want to deal with. Same for shorting someone on their trip or taking to long to get them out. Getting guys out early without some sort of life and death emergency usually falls under "well if I don't have anything else going on" priority level. I guarantee that outfitter was neck deep packing people in when you wanted out and could have had meat on the board to get packed as well.

I'm thinking you've never been around a horse intensive outfitting operation from the work side of it. If you had you'd understand how an opening week that has a long weekend means running around like crazy with 20 hour days to try to keep up with what's in front of you already. There's really no breathing room till the second week when the folks that took advantage of the long weekend are out and the people/camps that are there to just have the woods to themselves are put in.

I get your point of view on the whole deal, believe me I get it, I really really really get it. I've seen it multiple times from both sides. If you need to assign everything going wrong on the outfitter, go for it, I don't have any skin in the game and don't care if they carry the blame or not. If you want to get anything for your money spent, you're going to have to treat this as a learning experience so next time you do a drop camp somewhere you can be better prepared.

[pianoman9701]

You guys are nuts.  Me and my buddy Shane B have learned to set camp in a mobile home with a shower and always hunt the pasture.  Going up or downhill is for amateurs.

My kind of elk hunt. Did you guys have the caviar, truffles, and vodka, as well? That does require some stamina.

Due to safety concerns, we do not allow truffles on our hunts.

 

[2MANY]

Since I didn't graduate from collage but took many 101 level classes I will add one thing.

The drop camp hunts I have heard my friends talk about typically require you to pack the meat to camp unless it's hanging on the trail on the way out.

[vandeman17]

Unless there's a well used trail in the bottom of whatever drainage you're looking at, you navigate the Eagle Caps from the ridge tops. Don't give up elevation unless you have to.

DING DING DING WE HAVE A WINNER!!!!!! My Man. To steep, and deep to start in the bottom every day.

For me, after dropping down in and hunting lower, it killed me hiking back to camp. No idea what the heck I would have done if I would have killed one down there. 

Bone it out hang it in a cool dark place, and call the packer to come and get it.

Bingo. If you paid money for a service, use it. No reason to pack meat up all that vertical when you paid someone to pack for you.

Before the hunt, we were told that he would try to come in and pack it out within a few days if possible. When we texted back and forth while actually up there, he said there was no way to get up to us, even to pack us completely out, until our originally scheduled date unless it was an emergency. Before knowing this, we already said if we killed one, it was going down hill and hung near the river in a cool, shady spot. Little did we know it would have had to hang there for potentially 8-9 days

Hauling meat constitutes an emergency.
Order of packing importance for most outfitters:
1) Packing people/supplies in.
2) Packing meat out.
3) Packing people out.
4) Packing people out early for non emergencies.

Leaving meat hanging to long introduces some legal liabilities that outfitters don't want to deal with. Same for shorting someone on their trip or taking to long to get them out. Getting guys out early without some sort of life and death emergency usually falls under "well if I don't have anything else going on" priority level. I guarantee that outfitter was neck deep packing people in when you wanted out and could have had meat on the board to get packed as well.

I'm thinking you've never been around a horse intensive outfitting operation from the work side of it. If you had you'd understand how an opening week that has a long weekend means running around like crazy with 20 hour days to try to keep up with what's in front of you already. There's really no breathing room till the second week when the folks that took advantage of the long weekend are out and the people/camps that are there to just have the woods to themselves are put in.

I get your point of view on the whole deal, believe me I get it, I really really really get it. I've seen it multiple times from both sides. If you need to assign everything going wrong on the outfitter, go for it, I don't have any skin in the game and don't care if they carry the blame or not. If you want to get anything for your money spent, you're going to have to treat this as a learning experience so next time you do a drop camp somewhere you can be better prepared.

He specifically told us, on multiple occasions, that if we got one down he would try to come in and get it out within a few days. He knew full well he was fully booked and I would have had zero issue if he said it wasn't an option but saying it was, then it wasn't, was our issue.

As for Lord Grizzly, again, we get it, you know all and the rest of us are mere mortals. Give it a rest

[theleo]

Unless there's a well used trail in the bottom of whatever drainage you're looking at, you navigate the Eagle Caps from the ridge tops. Don't give up elevation unless you have to.

yup. elk hunting is about persistence (often anyway) and up hill to hunt everyday i promises will wear you out well before the elk wear out. agin i kinda thought this was 101 stuff. surprising to see how many people think going vertical every day to hunt is productive. i bust my as to get to the top with camp then start running ridges to bedding/feeding areas. cover way more way faster from up there. no way im climbing every morning. especially when all these bottom up road hunters just push them to ya

I really don't have a preference one way or the other in general. Most of what I do in your state I'm fine moving around via the bottoms. It's just in the Eagle Caps I don't know of a single creek or river bottom that isn't full of match sticked timber. %90 of the time you're way ahead to just gain the elevation to get out of the tangles and downed timber, to try and get anywhere instead of heading down a bottom of some sort. It might be shorter on the map to go down hill but it can be 10x the effort.

[theleo]

Unless there's a well used trail in the bottom of whatever drainage you're looking at, you navigate the Eagle Caps from the ridge tops. Don't give up elevation unless you have to.

DING DING DING WE HAVE A WINNER!!!!!! My Man. To steep, and deep to start in the bottom every day.

For me, after dropping down in and hunting lower, it killed me hiking back to camp. No idea what the heck I would have done if I would have killed one down there. 

Bone it out hang it in a cool dark place, and call the packer to come and get it.

Bingo. If you paid money for a service, use it. No reason to pack meat up all that vertical when you paid someone to pack for you.

Before the hunt, we were told that he would try to come in and pack it out within a few days if possible. When we texted back and forth while actually up there, he said there was no way to get up to us, even to pack us completely out, until our originally scheduled date unless it was an emergency. Before knowing this, we already said if we killed one, it was going down hill and hung near the river in a cool, shady spot. Little did we know it would have had to hang there for potentially 8-9 days

Hauling meat constitutes an emergency.
Order of packing importance for most outfitters:
1) Packing people/supplies in.
2) Packing meat out.
3) Packing people out.
4) Packing people out early for non emergencies.

Leaving meat hanging to long introduces some legal liabilities that outfitters don't want to deal with. Same for shorting someone on their trip or taking to long to get them out. Getting guys out early without some sort of life and death emergency usually falls under "well if I don't have anything else going on" priority level. I guarantee that outfitter was neck deep packing people in when you wanted out and could have had meat on the board to get packed as well.

I'm thinking you've never been around a horse intensive outfitting operation from the work side of it. If you had you'd understand how an opening week that has a long weekend means running around like crazy with 20 hour days to try to keep up with what's in front of you already. There's really no breathing room till the second week when the folks that took advantage of the long weekend are out and the people/camps that are there to just have the woods to themselves are put in.

I get your point of view on the whole deal, believe me I get it, I really really really get it. I've seen it multiple times from both sides. If you need to assign everything going wrong on the outfitter, go for it, I don't have any skin in the game and don't care if they carry the blame or not. If you want to get anything for your money spent, you're going to have to treat this as a learning experience so next time you do a drop camp somewhere you can be better prepared.

He specifically told us, on multiple occasions, that if we got one down he would try to come in and get it out within a few days. He knew full well he was fully booked and I would have had zero issue if he said it wasn't an option but saying it was, then it wasn't, was our issue.

As for Lord Grizzly, again, we get it, you know all and the rest of us are mere mortals. Give it a rest

What you're missing Vande is there's a difference between packing MEAT and packing YOU. Unless the discussion was "I couldn't even pack any animal you get for at least 3-4 days" he was going about things how most outfitters do. Even then I'd bet it was more an issue of getting an antsy client off his back more than his actual ability to get the meat packed in a timely manner.

[vandeman17]

Unless there's a well used trail in the bottom of whatever drainage you're looking at, you navigate the Eagle Caps from the ridge tops. Don't give up elevation unless you have to.

DING DING DING WE HAVE A WINNER!!!!!! My Man. To steep, and deep to start in the bottom every day.

For me, after dropping down in and hunting lower, it killed me hiking back to camp. No idea what the heck I would have done if I would have killed one down there. 

Bone it out hang it in a cool dark place, and call the packer to come and get it.

Bingo. If you paid money for a service, use it. No reason to pack meat up all that vertical when you paid someone to pack for you.

Before the hunt, we were told that he would try to come in and pack it out within a few days if possible. When we texted back and forth while actually up there, he said there was no way to get up to us, even to pack us completely out, until our originally scheduled date unless it was an emergency. Before knowing this, we already said if we killed one, it was going down hill and hung near the river in a cool, shady spot. Little did we know it would have had to hang there for potentially 8-9 days

Hauling meat constitutes an emergency.
Order of packing importance for most outfitters:
1) Packing people/supplies in.
2) Packing meat out.
3) Packing people out.
4) Packing people out early for non emergencies.

Leaving meat hanging to long introduces some legal liabilities that outfitters don't want to deal with. Same for shorting someone on their trip or taking to long to get them out. Getting guys out early without some sort of life and death emergency usually falls under "well if I don't have anything else going on" priority level. I guarantee that outfitter was neck deep packing people in when you wanted out and could have had meat on the board to get packed as well.

I'm thinking you've never been around a horse intensive outfitting operation from the work side of it. If you had you'd understand how an opening week that has a long weekend means running around like crazy with 20 hour days to try to keep up with what's in front of you already. There's really no breathing room till the second week when the folks that took advantage of the long weekend are out and the people/camps that are there to just have the woods to themselves are put in.

I get your point of view on the whole deal, believe me I get it, I really really really get it. I've seen it multiple times from both sides. If you need to assign everything going wrong on the outfitter, go for it, I don't have any skin in the game and don't care if they carry the blame or not. If you want to get anything for your money spent, you're going to have to treat this as a learning experience so next time you do a drop camp somewhere you can be better prepared.

He specifically told us, on multiple occasions, that if we got one down he would try to come in and get it out within a few days. He knew full well he was fully booked and I would have had zero issue if he said it wasn't an option but saying it was, then it wasn't, was our issue.

As for Lord Grizzly, again, we get it, you know all and the rest of us are mere mortals. Give it a rest

What you're missing Vande is there's a difference between packing MEAT and packing YOU. Unless the discussion was "I couldn't even pack any animal you get for at least 3-4 days" he was going about things how most outfitters do. Even then I'd bet it was more an issue of getting an antsy client off his back more than his actual ability to get the meat packed in a timely manner.

So what you are saying was that it was ok that he set false expectations? I had just asked him over the course of us locking in all the details and would have been fine either way. He even just verified before he left camp because I knew we were on top of the mountain and I wanted to plan in the event we killed an elk.

I appreciate your honest feedback but I still don't feel like it was handled very well. If we would have killed two elk first morning, would we have been expected to sit in camp the remaining 9 days until he could come back in?

[idahohuntr]

yup. elk hunting is about persistence (often anyway) and up hill to hunt everyday i promises will wear you out well before the elk wear out. agin i kinda thought this was 101 stuff. surprising to see how many people think going vertical every day to hunt is productive. i bust my as to get to the top with camp then start running ridges to bedding/feeding areas. cover way more way faster from up there. no way im climbing every morning. especially when all these bottom up road hunters just push them to ya

I find it comical that you prescribe a particular hunting method (hunting downhill) as "101 stuff".  There are so many variables in elk hunting that suggesting something like "hunting downhill" is always what you do really demonstrates a complete lack of awareness or understanding of many major considerations such as thermals, elk behavior, terrain, seasons, hunting pressure etc.   

[vandeman17]

yup. elk hunting is about persistence (often anyway) and up hill to hunt everyday i promises will wear you out well before the elk wear out. agin i kinda thought this was 101 stuff. surprising to see how many people think going vertical every day to hunt is productive. i bust my as to get to the top with camp then start running ridges to bedding/feeding areas. cover way more way faster from up there. no way im climbing every morning. especially when all these bottom up road hunters just push them to ya

I find it comical that you prescribe a particular hunting method (hunting downhill) as "101 stuff".  There are so many variables in elk hunting that suggesting something like "hunting downhill" is always what you do really demonstrates a complete lack of awareness or understanding of many major considerations such as thermals, elk behavior, terrain, seasons, hunting pressure etc.

  The guy has zero knowledge of the area we were yet knows exactly how to hunt it 

[theleo]

So what you are saying was that it was ok that he set false expectations? I had just asked him over the course of us locking in all the details and would have been fine either way. He even just verified before he left camp because I knew we were on top of the mountain and I wanted to plan in the event we killed an elk.

I appreciate your honest feedback but I still don't feel like it was handled very well. If we would have killed two elk first morning, would we have been expected to sit in camp the remaining 9 days until he could come back in?

His over sell would be on him.
As to how things would play out if you killed a couple bulls opening morning it'd probably go something like this:

You got a couple of bulls down below your camp. You got the meat somewhere cool in the shade either above or below the meadows. You're able to get back to camp that evening to get a call or signal out that you had animals down and where they're at. The outfitter looks at his plate to see what he's got going, so he can combine a trip packing people/stuff in with packing your meat out in the next day or two (I don't know where all the camps are for this outfitter but I do know I can get to where you were via 4 different trail heads and decent trails that aren't the ones you came in on). The outfitter would get figured out with you where to take the meat, either meeting with one of you so you could get it in your coolers or worst case take it somewhere in Union, La Grande, Wallowa or Enterprise to get it hanging. Either you or your dad would come down and make more permanent plans about the meat if it had to get hung in one of those towns or dealing with it in your coolers. At that point you're scheduled to come out in in however many days are left. Whatever you want to do until then is up to you but there's probably not going to be a dedicated trip in to get you and your stuff until the day you're scheduled to leave. If it was me, whoever went down to make arrangements for the meat would come back up with beer or whiskey in there pack and I'd spend the next few days doing some high mountain trout fishing. The wives would be told the bulls were killed the last day you were able to hunt.   

[vandeman17]

So what you are saying was that it was ok that he set false expectations? I had just asked him over the course of us locking in all the details and would have been fine either way. He even just verified before he left camp because I knew we were on top of the mountain and I wanted to plan in the event we killed an elk.

I appreciate your honest feedback but I still don't feel like it was handled very well. If we would have killed two elk first morning, would we have been expected to sit in camp the remaining 9 days until he could come back in?

His over sell would be on him.
As to how things would play out if you killed a couple bulls opening morning it'd probably go something like this:

You got a couple of bulls down below your camp. You got the meat somewhere cool in the shade either above or below the meadows. You're able to get back to camp that evening to get a call or signal out that you had animals down and where they're at. The outfitter looks at his plate to see what he's got going, so he can combine a trip packing people/stuff in with packing your meat out in the next day or two (I don't know where all the camps are for this outfitter but I do know I can get to where you were via 4 different trail heads and decent trails that aren't the ones you came in on). The outfitter would get figured out with you where to take the meat, either meeting with one of you so you could get it in your coolers or worst case take it somewhere in Union, La Grande, Wallowa or Enterprise to get it hanging. Either you or your dad would come down and make more permanent plans about the meat if it had to get hung in one of those towns or dealing with it in your coolers. At that point you're scheduled to come out in in however many days are left. Whatever you want to do until then is up to you but there's probably not going to be a dedicated trip in to get you and your stuff until the day you're scheduled to leave. If it was me, whoever went down to make arrangements for the meat would come back up with beer or whiskey in there pack and I'd spend the next few days doing some high mountain trout fishing. The wives would be told the bulls were killed the last day you were able to hunt.   

Would need lots of beer or whiskey to pass that much time 

[theleo]

So what you are saying was that it was ok that he set false expectations? I had just asked him over the course of us locking in all the details and would have been fine either way. He even just verified before he left camp because I knew we were on top of the mountain and I wanted to plan in the event we killed an elk.

I appreciate your honest feedback but I still don't feel like it was handled very well. If we would have killed two elk first morning, would we have been expected to sit in camp the remaining 9 days until he could come back in?

His over sell would be on him.
As to how things would play out if you killed a couple bulls opening morning it'd probably go something like this:

You got a couple of bulls down below your camp. You got the meat somewhere cool in the shade either above or below the meadows. You're able to get back to camp that evening to get a call or signal out that you had animals down and where they're at. The outfitter looks at his plate to see what he's got going, so he can combine a trip packing people/stuff in with packing your meat out in the next day or two (I don't know where all the camps are for this outfitter but I do know I can get to where you were via 4 different trail heads and decent trails that aren't the ones you came in on). The outfitter would get figured out with you where to take the meat, either meeting with one of you so you could get it in your coolers or worst case take it somewhere in Union, La Grande, Wallowa or Enterprise to get it hanging. Either you or your dad would come down and make more permanent plans about the meat if it had to get hung in one of those towns or dealing with it in your coolers. At that point you're scheduled to come out in in however many days are left. Whatever you want to do until then is up to you but there's probably not going to be a dedicated trip in to get you and your stuff until the day you're scheduled to leave. If it was me, whoever went down to make arrangements for the meat would come back up with beer or whiskey in there pack and I'd spend the next few days doing some high mountain trout fishing. The wives would be told the bulls were killed the last day you were able to hunt.   

Would need lots of beer or whiskey to pass that much time 

If you didn't have enough with you when you packed in at the beginning to get at least one of you through that much down time, that's your fault. You should of only needed to get an extra 1/2 gallon of whiskey to see you boys through till the end in that situation.

[syoungs]

So what you are saying was that it was ok that he set false expectations? I had just asked him over the course of us locking in all the details and would have been fine either way. He even just verified before he left camp because I knew we were on top of the mountain and I wanted to plan in the event we killed an elk.

I appreciate your honest feedback but I still don't feel like it was handled very well. If we would have killed two elk first morning, would we have been expected to sit in camp the remaining 9 days until he could come back in?

His over sell would be on him.
As to how things would play out if you killed a couple bulls opening morning it'd probably go something like this:

You got a couple of bulls down below your camp. You got the meat somewhere cool in the shade either above or below the meadows. You're able to get back to camp that evening to get a call or signal out that you had animals down and where they're at. The outfitter looks at his plate to see what he's got going, so he can combine a trip packing people/stuff in with packing your meat out in the next day or two (I don't know where all the camps are for this outfitter but I do know I can get to where you were via 4 different trail heads and decent trails that aren't the ones you came in on). The outfitter would get figured out with you where to take the meat, either meeting with one of you so you could get it in your coolers or worst case take it somewhere in Union, La Grande, Wallowa or Enterprise to get it hanging. Either you or your dad would come down and make more permanent plans about the meat if it had to get hung in one of those towns or dealing with it in your coolers. At that point you're scheduled to come out in in however many days are left. Whatever you want to do until then is up to you but there's probably not going to be a dedicated trip in to get you and your stuff until the day you're scheduled to leave. If it was me, whoever went down to make arrangements for the meat would come back up with beer or whiskey in there pack and I'd spend the next few days doing some high mountain trout fishing. The wives would be told the bulls were killed the last day you were able to hunt.   

Would need lots of beer or whiskey to pass that much time 

If you didn't have enough with you when you packed in at the beginning to get at least one of you through that much down time, that's your fault. You should of only needed to get an extra 1/2 gallon of whiskey to see you boys through till the end in that situation.

I guess I will never get to do a pack in hunt if 1/2 gallon of whiskey is supposed to last me 9 days...