Any advice for hunting alone? I will be out Elk hunting for 7 days. Any advice of things to not forget or anything?
Yeah, its crazy lol. It wasnt going to be that way but the guy from work i was going to go with couldnt go at the last minute. then the next person who i was going with suddenly said they didnt want to go any more. Then my wife was going to come along but her sister said she is coming from out of state to visit this weekend. I leave tomorrow morning so kinda left me with no other option. I will take a crap ton of pictures! At the very least it will be cool to see me go crazy.
I spend a week or two at least each year hunting deer/hogs alone. It does my head the world of good, gets one back to the real basics of life (and death). If I am to check out, that is the activity I would like to be doing. Second choice is....oh, never mind...
You might consider taking a PLB just in case you find yourself in a tough spot with no cell coverage.
Im pretty excited for this, but pretty nervous ive never done any real hunting before. I have gone camping alone for 3 days before though. Im hopping it will be good for me. I didnt even think about that i will be in an area about 1 hour away from any form of cellphone reception. Ill have to see if i can pick one up in the morning
Be careful and enjoy yourself. The main thing don't take any chances. I have some medical condition and Dr alway on me about hunting or going out in the marsh by myself but if I have to go what better place. Don't stress out and enjoy the moment. The harvesting of elk going be the hard part of the whole trip.
I'd second the comment about bringing a beacon. It will be a great time, soak it up and enjoy some alone time.
I worked with a guy who went elk hunting in Colorado every November. Getting an elk could involve several trips to carry it all out. Hiking it out up and down hills could be the most strenuous thing you have ever done. Before you take that shot, evaluate if you can get to the elk and what the terrain is like between that elk and your transportation. Shooting an elk and having to leave most of it behind because you can't carry it out is better than having SAR find your body because you blew your heart out trying to be a good sportsman. No elk is worth your life.
Well, im back. I had to cut my trip short because of a few life lessons learned. First a atv or something would be amazing, a truck get screwed up pretty easy. Next, patience doesnt always pay of for you. finally, cheap tents arent really worth it. I got up there friday morning, got camp set up and did some scouting. I didnt see much for elk but i saw a crap ton of mule deer. I was out there two weeks ago for mule deer and didnt see any then (but i did find elk at that time) and the season ended on the 12th I saw them the 14th, damn. So i went back to camp with a plan kinda. I knew where some were two weeks ago so i figured id start there. 4:00 am i woke up, got ready, ate and headed out by 4:30. Turned on to a dirt road had a huge hole in it i didnt see bent my front bumper, oh well its a truck it will get beat up im out here to kill a elk i thought so i continued on! Got to my spot and parked then walked west. After a hour or so (it was still dark thats all i know) i saw some tracks, ive been reading up on elk tracking like crazy, so i put my new skills to the test. I could tell they were pretty fresh and after a little i found some elk poop that was still steaming. After a bit more the sun started coming up and it was getting pretty windy. I adjusted my anhle of folkowing the trail and eventualy found some fresh elk piss! Hell yes! i was on a roll, after about fifteen more minutes i spotted him about a hundred yard off. He was a good sized for this area bull a 4x5. His back end was too me and with the dense trees and the wind blowing at about 35 miles an hour i didnt want to try to sneak around him so i followed him around waiting for the right time. I never let him get more than 200 yards away. After about 2 hours he went over a hill and headed to the left(west) i knew as soon as i got up the hill i would get a perfect shot off! So up i went, about 2/3 of the way up, CRACK!, i paused and heard 2 more shots. They were so close i knew some one was shooting at him. I ran up the hill and sure enough there was 3 orange vested men standing there right at the edge of the clearing. I just stood there and stared for a minute i saw they dropped him right in his tracks. One of the hunters saw me and called me over. He asked if i was tracking him i told them i was they all felt bad but thanked me for flushing him out and offered me a beer at their camp. I turned them down and went out to look for more elk. By the time it was dark i didnt see anything so i headed back to camp. Went right ti bed then headed out again for the next 2 days and didnt see anything but did get my truck stuck a few times so monday around noon i figured i pack up camp and move to another area. Got to camp to see the wind shreded my tent (had gust of around 65 mph that day) and several of my tent poles were split. So i packed up and headed home. It was fun but it kinda sucked.
The important thing is that you take the lessons learned from this trip and apply them to your subsequent ones, I have been chasing deer since I was 15 and I am *cough "over 40" cough* now and I think I still learn something each and every time I set foot in the bush. Last trip away I spent 5+ hours unbogging my LandCruiser after the simplest of turns saw my sunk up to the diffs. I would struggle hunting where there are others (unplanned) as that has great potential to go wrong above and beyond what you experienced. I would say though that you did damn well to get onto that bull the way you did, disappointing someone else grounded him but you had "owned him" through your own application of knowledge, that really is the point of the game. Get up, dust yourself off, reassess and go back at it. I head bush this Friday for a week chasing Chital (Axis) around. Andy
Thank you, Im hope i can get out again before the seasons over, but i used all my pto from work for this week so ill have to try on the weekends. It was crazy followimg him around i looked at my watch when i found him it was about 7 am or so then i didnt look again till i was talking to the guys who shot him and it was 9:53am i swore i was only following him for 20 minutes. It was amazing to just watch him do his daily thing. I had no idea what thoes were so i looked thwm up they look awesome! Good luck with that!
Beats not going. They call it hunting for reason. We had something similar in Colorado hunting Mule Deer. We flushed it right to another group. Learn and be even better next time. You had time in the woods and that's what counts.
Sounds like an awesome time. You got out and you saw an animal. I count myself lucky if I get that far. Taking an animal is icing on the cake.
It was fun and im happy i got out. It just sucked being so close to him for so long and not getting him. Haha still frusterated about it a week later. This was my i guess second time really hunting i went a few weeks ago for deer with my wife but we didnt see anything but elk and pronghorn. So this elk trip was still pretty new to me. Ive been "hunting" before kinda, i wemt out with some friends who never wandered too far from camp and got lucky a few times but for the most part they used it as an excuse to get out from work and home and get drunk for a week. I wanted to really hunt so i went out this year alone. Im going to try to get out again in a few weeks for the last weekend of the season too see if it got xold enough to push them out of the mountains.