One week away..

HortoTheSlayer

HortoTheSlayer

Well-Known Member
May 17, 2018
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Boise Idaho
Started planning this trip a year and a half ago..it was tossed around but I rarely make big expenditures let alone for myself but I really wanted to go after an Elk and my wifes uncle said he could help me get it done. Fast forward 1 year and I'm getting ready to put in for a draw and covid hits...now even more unsure about my financial future I told myself I work my butt off to make sure my family has everything and my bills payed..did the math and what I would be spending is what I get in a few days of work so I bit the bullet and got an OTC bull elk tag. Three days later they sold out..got mine just in time. A few months later and it's now a week away..

Taking off tomorrow afternoon. Driving through Utah on my way to Idaho. Going to make a couple stops to see Zion National park, the Great Salt Lake and Shoshone Falls on the way to Boise. Then heading up into the mountains for Elk season opener on the 15th.

I'll try to share some pics along the way.

Send some of that mojo my way fellas!!
 
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Spent 3 days hunting a few different areas some with tons of sign and some not so much. I was lucky enough to hunt with my wifes uncle who has some access on some private properties and also got to hunt some state land. The first day we headed to a spot that the elk cross into and sometimes hold up in after feeding in some fields and drinking at the river. We were hunting with his best friend and his friends 16 yr old son. That day they came in from the north and we came in from the south. When they headed in they could hear the elk jumping the fence over into a property we couldn't access. We had a tree stand and a ground blind in the area and some cams. The father/son duo couldn't hunt that evening so we set up in a blind that night. We had a mule deer cross to the right of us but no elk. Had a neat experience when a great horned out came down 10 yards in front of us to make dinner out of one the the squirrels that was running a muck out there. After that it went silent..no more squirrels or chipmunks to be heard.

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The next morning we go back in there and again they hear the elk hit the fence and bound over. Walked up to a knoll and found the whole area raked by bulls. So we know they are in there. As we walk down back towards the area we have our blind, we spot a few cow elk coming from that direction 30 yards over the fence line. We freeze so we don't spoke and we watch what we thought was 6 or 7 cows and a branched spike bull. We figured we just missed them on our property by a matter of minutes..We are watching them for a few minutes going over a plan to call them back over and as we are watching they start to spook. We thought they winded us and we then see about 30 cow elk start to run off in the opposite direction along with the spike bull. Another hunter had come down and spooked them not knowing we were there..he was hunting white tails working his way to state land from his house.

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We went back to that area again in the evening but it was a quite night. We switched it up the following morning and went to a spot my wifes uncle had seen some bulls a week earlier. Unfortunately they were held up in a property that we couldn't get them on. Went to another area the next day and we found lots of fresh tracks and sign. Hiked up a ridge that morning and could see that the elk were working their way down at night to a big field to feed then they would go back up high into the timber.
It was my last day do we set back up there in the evening to try and catch them working their way down. The plan was for my wifes uncle and his friend to go up and around and try to push the elk towards me and his friends son as we worked along a ridge that we could see down on either side. The woods were eerily quite that evening and just as it passed shooting light I hear a cow making some calls just 50 yards down hill from me but the sun had set and darkness enveloped the mountain and my elk season came to an end.

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George,

Thank you for taking us along on your elk hunt...There's always a lot of luck involved (even on private)...The more you go, the more you learn, the luckier you'll become.

ps....Great pictures too.
 
ilovesprig said:
George,

Thank you for taking us along on your elk hunt...There's always a lot of luck involved (even on private)...The more you go, the more you learn, the luckier you'll become.

ps....Great pictures too.
Click to expand...
Thank you Steve and it definitely was a huge learning experience. Finding scrapes and tracks was a blast for me and even being able to smell the Elk when they were close was an experience in itself. I keep replaying it all in my mind and going over what I would do next time. Can't wait to go back already!
 
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