Irrelevant
Well-known member
I’ve been wanted to share this hunt for a while now and have finally found a few minutes to string some words together. By the end I discovered it took more than a few minutes, as there were just too many things tell, I just couldn’t leave them out.
This year I set out for my first out-of-state elk hunt; destination Idaho.
First a bit of background. I grew up and still live in Washington and was fortunate to be bone into a hunting family. Unfortunately, in 17 years I’d never killed an elk, and had only had to opportunities. One at age 15 I clean missed a nice bull, just too excited and too much gun (without enough practice). The second with my bow last year, but unfortunately a killed the one small alder sapling between me and the cow. In many respects I’d given up on WA.
I’ve been looking into Idaho for quite some time as a possibility for an elk hunt; one that would break the curse and finally put some elk meat in the freezer. Using the statistics from Idaho Fish and Game and Google Earth I was able to locate a half a dozen or more places that I thought were great elk areas. So over the next three summers I dragged the family over to ID for some summer camping and elk scouting. Unfortunately, none of the areas I’d identified online proved to be elk areas in real life. Oh, we saw elk, but in the densities that warranted the cost of an out-of-state tag.
During one of those summers I’d ventured over to WY for some backcountry flyfishing. On the drive back I stopped at several locations and found elk literally everywhere in that state. I was pumped. And have been applying for points ever since. But on the way back through ID I happen to take a side road through a valley I’d never been before. One without good harvest statistics and therefore not on my list of areas to scout. Something about the terrain and the remoteness struck something deep down and I knew I needed to explore it. If not for hunting at least for the scenery, as it was nothing I’d ever seen before.
Once home I looked back as the stats and sure enough they really weren’t that back. Maybe it would be worth hunting… I spent WAY too much time picked the land apart via aerial photos. I had every nook and cranny memorized. I finally put in a call to one of the regional biologists. I asked a bunch of questions but really wasn’t getting anywhere, no tips of any substance. I finally just asked were might I go and be able to hike 3-5 miles off trail, and see some elk and not see any people. I threw out some drainages thinking I already knew the answer. He responded with a canyon I’d never heard of. “It’s across the valley from where you looking.” I basically ignored him and kept asking about the areas I’d remotely scouted. He listened, then said “if I were you I’d look in XXX canyon.” I jotted down the name, but didn’t think much about it. The terrain just didn’t look good.
This summer I once again drug the family back to ID for another scouting trip. Simply because it was slightly closer we went to the recommended spot first to spend a couple of nights before heading to the areas I thought would be better. On the way in I thought, “Damn, this is remote, hope to shit we don’t get stuck or hurt.” We setup camp next to a nice glassing spot. Once the tent was up I took the binos and wandered up to the lookout. I randomly threw my glass up on a hill and WHAM there’s some elk. Then there’s some more elk, and more elk, and more elk. Everywhere I looked there were elk. I put the binos on a tripod to take a more detailed look and sure enough there were bulls everywhere, BIG BULLS, I mean like the biggest bulls I’d ever seen bulls.
I checked every morning and evening we were there, without fail so were the elk.
The last day we were there, the rancher, who runs his cows up the drainage, stopped by. The first words out of his mouth were, “I’ve never seen any camp there.” I picked his brain for 10 minutes on everything I could think of about the area, including so I’ve seen some elk over there, are they still in that area later in the season, same question but over here, what about migrations, how far do they travel? He finally stopped me mid-sentence and said, “Son, the elk hunting up here is easy. It’s the deer hunting that’s hard.” Quick, someone pinch me, I think I died and went to heaven. Easy elk hunting, I’d always thought that was an oxymoron.
Suffice to say we didn’t check out any more areas. I had the spot.
Fast forward to Sept. and I was back doing the WA archery elk thing for a couple weeks. Hunting with a friend and his family. This friend had volunteered to go along to ID with me just to call and pack (if needed), take a look at the country a bit. But he wanted to hunt WA hard, since that was his only tag. So the plan was to hunt all but the last day or so of the WA season, then take off for the last week of September to ID.
As luck would have it the second day of season I broke the curse and took a nice cow. It wasn’t the best of shots but thanks to my friend, his wife, and dad, we found her then next morning and packed her out. The stars had aligned, I had meat in the freezer, now I could actually hold out for a bull and ID and not feel like I had to take the first shot that presented itself.
The rest of the WA season was uneventful. No other animals taken in our camp, almost no elk seen the last week.
TBC...
This year I set out for my first out-of-state elk hunt; destination Idaho.
First a bit of background. I grew up and still live in Washington and was fortunate to be bone into a hunting family. Unfortunately, in 17 years I’d never killed an elk, and had only had to opportunities. One at age 15 I clean missed a nice bull, just too excited and too much gun (without enough practice). The second with my bow last year, but unfortunately a killed the one small alder sapling between me and the cow. In many respects I’d given up on WA.
I’ve been looking into Idaho for quite some time as a possibility for an elk hunt; one that would break the curse and finally put some elk meat in the freezer. Using the statistics from Idaho Fish and Game and Google Earth I was able to locate a half a dozen or more places that I thought were great elk areas. So over the next three summers I dragged the family over to ID for some summer camping and elk scouting. Unfortunately, none of the areas I’d identified online proved to be elk areas in real life. Oh, we saw elk, but in the densities that warranted the cost of an out-of-state tag.
During one of those summers I’d ventured over to WY for some backcountry flyfishing. On the drive back I stopped at several locations and found elk literally everywhere in that state. I was pumped. And have been applying for points ever since. But on the way back through ID I happen to take a side road through a valley I’d never been before. One without good harvest statistics and therefore not on my list of areas to scout. Something about the terrain and the remoteness struck something deep down and I knew I needed to explore it. If not for hunting at least for the scenery, as it was nothing I’d ever seen before.
Once home I looked back as the stats and sure enough they really weren’t that back. Maybe it would be worth hunting… I spent WAY too much time picked the land apart via aerial photos. I had every nook and cranny memorized. I finally put in a call to one of the regional biologists. I asked a bunch of questions but really wasn’t getting anywhere, no tips of any substance. I finally just asked were might I go and be able to hike 3-5 miles off trail, and see some elk and not see any people. I threw out some drainages thinking I already knew the answer. He responded with a canyon I’d never heard of. “It’s across the valley from where you looking.” I basically ignored him and kept asking about the areas I’d remotely scouted. He listened, then said “if I were you I’d look in XXX canyon.” I jotted down the name, but didn’t think much about it. The terrain just didn’t look good.
This summer I once again drug the family back to ID for another scouting trip. Simply because it was slightly closer we went to the recommended spot first to spend a couple of nights before heading to the areas I thought would be better. On the way in I thought, “Damn, this is remote, hope to shit we don’t get stuck or hurt.” We setup camp next to a nice glassing spot. Once the tent was up I took the binos and wandered up to the lookout. I randomly threw my glass up on a hill and WHAM there’s some elk. Then there’s some more elk, and more elk, and more elk. Everywhere I looked there were elk. I put the binos on a tripod to take a more detailed look and sure enough there were bulls everywhere, BIG BULLS, I mean like the biggest bulls I’d ever seen bulls.
I checked every morning and evening we were there, without fail so were the elk.
The last day we were there, the rancher, who runs his cows up the drainage, stopped by. The first words out of his mouth were, “I’ve never seen any camp there.” I picked his brain for 10 minutes on everything I could think of about the area, including so I’ve seen some elk over there, are they still in that area later in the season, same question but over here, what about migrations, how far do they travel? He finally stopped me mid-sentence and said, “Son, the elk hunting up here is easy. It’s the deer hunting that’s hard.” Quick, someone pinch me, I think I died and went to heaven. Easy elk hunting, I’d always thought that was an oxymoron.
Suffice to say we didn’t check out any more areas. I had the spot.
Fast forward to Sept. and I was back doing the WA archery elk thing for a couple weeks. Hunting with a friend and his family. This friend had volunteered to go along to ID with me just to call and pack (if needed), take a look at the country a bit. But he wanted to hunt WA hard, since that was his only tag. So the plan was to hunt all but the last day or so of the WA season, then take off for the last week of September to ID.
As luck would have it the second day of season I broke the curse and took a nice cow. It wasn’t the best of shots but thanks to my friend, his wife, and dad, we found her then next morning and packed her out. The stars had aligned, I had meat in the freezer, now I could actually hold out for a bull and ID and not feel like I had to take the first shot that presented itself.
The rest of the WA season was uneventful. No other animals taken in our camp, almost no elk seen the last week.
TBC...