Late season bull question

[MuggyMan]

I know from painful personal experience that where the elk are in June through October doesn't mean a thing come late November. Someone from Colorado told me that as long as there's food and water, elk won't move until there's 2 feet of snow on the ground. Is this accurate? Any other insights about late season elk movement?

[rossislider]

You never know what those bulls are going to do. A few years back I had the late unit 1 bull hunt. We had at least a dozen bulls in several different groups located Thanksgiving evening, the night before the hunt. That night we had a big snow storm/blizzard that dropped at least 1-2 ft foot of snow where there had been no snow leading up to that night. The next morning the bulls were nowhere to be found. They were probably just hunkered down, but the patterns had definitely changed over night. Made for an interesting hunt.

[6ANut]

Heavy snow fall will kill the nutrients found in the food the elk graze, making them move lower to a better food source. Another factor is hunting pressure, especially in the late hunts. The big bulls tend to move to the steep canyons or heavy timber from what I have seen once pressured. I have been using google maps to find areas around the high pressure elk spots. Depending on what unit u have weather could be great or horrible. Some units as, you can read off the game and fish website, the elk move out of the unit due to the snow. Other units can see a jump in their elk numbers due to the migration.

[Deserttrecker]

I drew a Unit 10 late rifle tag. It will be my first elk hunt and I'm wondering the same thing. I'd imagine that area will see quite a bit of snow by then.

[shedcrazy45]

hey Deserttrecker, idk about a lot about other units but I had the 10 late hunt two years ago and have it again this year, and when I had this tag last time we saw like 9 bulls but there wasn't any snow, so I am hoping it goes about the same this year and it should be a great hunt!.

[Deserttrecker]

Thanks for the info, I'm pretty novice at hunting but I've spent the last 4-5 years learning as much as I can on my ownand I want to have the best chance possible at getting a bull down this year!

[daverp]

Hunted U10 last year for late rifle with my nephew.

 

Tough hunt. I got there about 3 days before the season...the night it snowed. Hunting about 6500 feet. The storm put anywhere from 2" to 6" on the ground. And the elk vanished.

 

All my usual glassing hot spots were coming up empty, with the exception of a very broken up 5x the day before the season. Kicked another nice 5x up on the road after dark driving back to camp a couple days later. Only bulls I saw in 7 days. Was seeing very few tracks in the fresh snow or mud. On the way to one point I like to glass, I had a 3.5 mile round trip walk. I cut one single elk track. Was seeing no bulls, and seeing no cows.

 

Everyone we talked to said the same thing...."they're gone. They were here last week, now they're not to be found". Opinions on why ranged from the snow, even though it wasn't much, to helicopter herding on Babbitt Ranch a few days earlier spooking them out of the area.

 

A guide my brother knows said they took one bull all season, a 340" bull, right about where my favorite spot is that I glassed up that 5x, but they were otherwise having a terrible time locating elk.

 

Not sure what happened, but here are my thoughts....there was that inversion layer that hit the area about day 2 that had the area (and the canyon) socked in with fog. Once in a 10 year or so event, to have the canyon completely socked in with fog, or so I'd read. Thinking that weather weirdness may have had something to do with it. That, and I've read a theory on elk....they don't like snow from the trees melting and dripping on their heads while they bed (annoying, and noise) and will move lower to avoid it. Not sure about that, but, while we did have 2 to 6 inches on the ground, it warmed up the day after the storm, and snow was melting pretty good.

 

I don't think the pressure (at least where we were) was that bad. I usually walk a mile or more in, and with a couple exceptions (a couple guys who beat me to a spot very early), I saw almost nobody once I was on foot. I was at one glassing point...too close to the road (1/2 mile), and some guys started up until they saw me, and left. Some pressure, but not terrible, IMO.

 

So, this year my son has a U10 late rifle tag. We will be spending our next couple trips scouting out alternate locations in lower elevations and even less accessible areas as our backup plan in case this happens again. I still feel very confident in my trusted spots, but will abandon them in a hurry and move to the spots we're scouting now if we see the same thing we did last year. Think we waited too long to move. Once we did, I saw more elk tracks in one hour of walking up a hill to glass than I'd seen in the previous 5 days combined.

 

 

 

 

[mbiewer]

We had the thanksgiving hunt for 23n last year, and came home empty handed. we worked it hard all week. I stopped and talked to a few guys in the field and one guy at the gas station. Everyone said the same thing for that unit. The bulls hunker against the rim from all the pressure and don't start to move until the temperatures drop. So unless we had a helicopter,... it wasn't looking good. My brother did have a cow walk out about 15 feet in front of where he sat on a hill, but as hard as he tried to make her grow antlers, it didn't work.

 

This year we have to sit on our hands, but wouldn't you know it, the "odd man out" in our group that had to put in solo got drawn for the late-late bull hunt. 23n has the thanksgiving hunt, and then a second hunt right after for bull then the cow hunt. excited to see how it goes as I help him out on his hunt.