This might be your public-land elk hunting dream. But if it is, you better work for it. And start applying for points in premier elk hunting units.
Aspiring public-land elk hunters should expect a demanding challenge. After years of applying, a small percentage of you might draw a tag in a premium unit. For the rest of you, welcome to the elk jungle. Here’s what to expect.
Rarely do pressured public-land elk venture into wide-open areas.
General Public-Land Elk Hunting Expectations
General-unit hunting and even tags in garden-variety draw units toss you into a salad bowl of public-land hunters. The days of gaining access to private ranches and using public land as a backup have all but ceased to exist. As the wealthy gobble up deeds and outfitters lease the rest of incredible private-land elk country, it forces you and me to sweat it out on public lands for an elk opportunity.
The odds of success in units across the West bare the truth. If you hold an archery tag, success rarely tops 20%, and for the public-land, do-it-yourself crowd, commonly falls between 10-15%. For firearm hunters, the odds don’t look any better and rarely top 15%, especially considering all general units and middling draw permits.
This is the terrain type that most public elk are located in.
One Montana general unit I occasionally hunt (when I’m lucky enough to draw a tag) sports an archery success rate of 11% on a good year. I’ve been lucky, though. In four years of holding a general tag, I arrowed four consecutive DIY bulls in crowded conditions. I’m waiting for a fifth try while purchasing Power Ball tickets simultaneously.
The only permits that top the average success rates are in strictly regulated units that require anywhere from a dozen or more years of preference points to acquire. What does that tell you? Apply for preference while you duke it out DIY in the general hunting arena.
Of course, with general or mediocre tags, you must scout relentlessly, brush up on your calling, practice for every shot possibility, and go beyond what the median hunter applies to their hunt.
Real-world elk hunting requires significant, and quick, changes in elevation.
Getting Into Elk Hunting Shape
Begin with the basics. Get in shape. When you get locked out of the foothills where most topography rolls easily, expect to find elk in rugged, steep, and remote locations.
In short, expect the worst and be honest with yourself. Can you scramble up 1,000 or more feet through rocks and timber daily for the duration of a typical 5-day hunt? Can you descend that same craziness? More than half of the bulls I tagged in the past decade have been the result of scrambling up a mountain with 1,200 to more than 2,000 feet of separation from any trailhead. Your HuntStand app becomes a critical partner in your mountain forays to find the path of least resistance.
Do you have the stamina to hike eight miles every day through rough terrain at elevations from 8,000 to 10,000 feet, or more? Can you operate with limited nightly sleep and recharge daily with a catnap? September days are long and October days don’t offer much of a reprieve, either. According to government stats, nearly 80% of adults don’t meet the guidelines for muscle building and aerobic activities. That leaves you competing with the remaining 20%, many of whom have elk blood coursing through their veins.
Bowhunting Antelope: Tips for Getting Started
Before you start an Ironman workout, meet with a physician for an evaluation and recommendation on how to kick off a new workout program. In addition to what your doctor, trainer, and your conscience tell you to do, remember to strap on a weighted pack. With each day of hunting, you will tote 20 pounds or more of gear, including elk calls, water, food, survival gear, first aid, clothing layers, and meat extraction tools. If you need to dig out those extraction items (for the obvious), your pack could be triple digits on the way out. So, in addition to lifting weights and core training, hiking with a loaded backpack makes sense.
My workouts vary from daily hikes with my wife and border collie, to weightlifting in our basement gym, to cross-country shed antler hikes and endless ranch chores on our small Wyoming property. Pounding fence posts and carrying a hand sprayer across acres of sagebrush add to year-round fitness.
Create a mobile base camp.
Planning an Elk Hunt Base Camp
As your muscles reappear or bulge even more, begin planning for a hunt that keeps you close to the action. Embrace homelessness. Your goal is to avoid the Homestead Act and hunt more like the nomadic Native Americans of yesteryear. By utilizing a camp that provides a mobile platform, you can keep up with elk moving through a territory, which is commonplace in elk country. Your HuntStand hunting app, along with the Hybrid or Natural Atlas overlay, shows roads, plus terrain characteristics, while choosing camp options.
My go-to camp is my enclosed horse trailer. It transports horses or ATVs, and when unloaded, a quick cleanup turns the interior into camp with a cot, cooking area, wash station and propane heat. A renovated tack compartment now offers a studio apartment if I don’t want to set up the entire cargo area, or if friends join me for the backcountry misery. Setup and teardown take approximately one hour each. If I discover elk have left the building, I tear down and move base camp to the next location. Enclosed trailers, off-road campers, and even a pickup camper provide a similar mobile option.
How to Plan a Whitetail and Mule Deer Combo Hunt
Use HuntStand to find likely areas pressured elk will hang out in.
Sometimes, I leave base camp set and pioneer with my pickup and ATV in the truck box. While prospecting, I pack along enough supplies to spend two to three days just living out of my truck as I explore new areas. Although not as comfortable as the Hilton, I set an air mattress across the front seat and slumber away.
Finally, if I need to dive further into the backcountry, I bivy. “Bivy” is merely short for bivouac and adds up to a meager shelter or camp. For elk, it offers the ideal way to keep up with a herd by utilizing a mobile camp including a bivy bag, lightweight sleeping bag and pad, food, stove, water filter, and other survival needs. You can carry these provisions on your back while you keep up with elk and set up camp basically anywhere with comfort.
A cabin or huge RV has its luxuries to refresh you for the next day of hunting. Unfortunately, it leaves you cemented to one location when elk might have a U-Haul lifestyle in mind.
Once you find the herd, stay with it.
Elk on Mars and Someone’s Backyard
Be prepared to hunt in the roughest, remotest country on any map. In the same breath, be ready to thread the needle and hunt small parcels interspersed by a checkerboard of private lands. Today’s elk herds might travel with a path that resembles a Mars trajectory or they might simply run to a mountain subdivision to feed on a nearby golf course.
In either case, a subscription to HuntStand Pro or Pro Whitetail pays off quickly while dogging these elusive herds. As a rule, elk that don’t have an escape property — like a private ranch oasis — will retreat into areas of steepness, dark timber, roadless quadrants, etc. For private land information, including detailed boundaries, use the Property Info feature in HuntStand Pro or Pro Whitetail. These features also detail public ownership and boundaries to help keep you on the right side of the fence.
An effective way to sniff out a public parcel, in addition to very tight topographical lines, is to find areas that are two to four square miles of ground shut off to motorized access. Hike a mile or two into any roadless section of elk country, and you stand a good chance of being alone with elk aroma around you. Areas like these that require a major ascent or descent to access only increase the chance of never seeing another hunter when you hike in. Finally, any public area that’s separated by a dozen miles or more of rough country before private land appears on a map only further aids in the odds elk will stay on the public.
Navigating Western Hunting Tag Draws with HuntScore
The author worked hard for this incredible experience.
Despite public land vastness in elk country, elk still beeline to private lands for sanctuary. Some of these private holdings swallow up herds to never be seen again by the public-land hunter. Fortunately, during the rut, and as bulls move to find good feed in late fall, elk begin making mistakes wandering between public and private.
With HuntStand in hand, seek out any public access corridors adjacent to private tracts and be prepared when conditions force movement. Bulls begin bouncing between herds early and late in the rut to find estrus cows. With snow in the forecast, they begin moving toward bachelor hangouts, oftentimes leaving private for the public rough country again. Check your HuntStand weather to watch for the worst of winter and the best of elk movement.
The challenge of public-land elk hunting is taxing with the odds squarely in the corner of elk. Nevertheless, put as many variables in your game plan as possible. Eventually, elk make mistakes and you can capitalize on the opportunity if you’re not on the sidelines.
Scouting for Elk with HuntStand Pro
