I had the early rifle tag. I hunted with a friend that's been going to the area we hunted many years. They've been seeing elk there for the last 10 years or so and the numbers have grown each year. We hunted the first day and a half without seeing an elk. We saw a spike and 3 cows at the end of day 2, and around 25 head about 3 miles away the morning of day 3. They'd moved off by the time we got to where they'd been and we never saw them again. They'd been gathering cows in that area just before the hunt started and I figured they must have ran most of the elk out of the area before we got there. My friend said the area has been full of elk for the last few years. We hunted that same are the morning of day 4 and saw 3 cows, so that afternoon we went to an area about 15 miles away for the evening hunt. I ended up taking a bull that evening after only being in the new area for about 2 hours. We did see another decent bull and some cows just after I took my bull.
I had my hopes set pretty high for this hunt, talked to several guys that hunted this unit the last few years and most said they saw lots of bulls. I was feeling like I stayed in that one area longer than I should have and that I missed out on seeing all the bulls I'd been hearing about. I'd also be interested to hear how others did there this season.
Huntemdown,mtnarchery and dwalton, did any of you take an elk?