WOW! What a learning experience. That place is wet but still very beautiful. I left work Everett at 7pm on Friday rolled onto the forest road at midnight. On the forest road about 2 miles from camp we saw a herd of 5 elk cross the road in front of us. I couldn't see them real well, but I didn't see any horns. We set up a big tarp as it wasn't raining at the time (excellent idea) and got bed at 2:30 am. We woke up at 5:30 am and started hunting at first light. We saw a cow and a calf within an hour of first light, and then that was all the action we saw for the weekend.
There was sign everywhere but most of it seemed old. Boy does it rain over there, just doesn't stop once it starts. Saturday was awesome though, decently dry and really fun hunting. The terrain there is mostly thinned stuff so it was all timber hunting. We hunted the lowlands next to the river then went up above the snow line and hunted the timber ridgelines looking for the big boys. No luck, but yes I am hooked. Great... just another thing to spend vacation time on.
One tip I could use from you guys for starting out is how do you decide where to hunt in Timber? Do you specifically look for tracks then follow them? We went to a great spot, an old spur with clover and there was crap everywhere, bull and cow, but it was all from a week ago. Are they pattern animals? Are there high elk and low elk or do they move up and down in elevation randomly? Its like starting over hunting.
There was some adventure Saturday. Up above the snow line, before we started hiking, the end of a fallen tree jumped up and shot between my skid plate and my A-arm and popped the alternator belt off of my Tacoma. The motor instantly started to overheat. The belt was scarred but still functional. We tried to pop it back on with a phillips and flat head screwdriver but to no avail. We finally gave up and started to walk down the forest road, we got 30 feet and up drives a chevy. God bless you sir from Texas. He had sockets, and end wrenches. We had to take off the skid plate to loosen the alternator bolts to get it back on.
