LAST EDITED ON Oct-12-19 AT 07:24AM (MST)[p]LAST EDITED ON Oct-12-19 AT 07:22?AM (MST)
LAST EDITED ON Oct-12-19 AT 06:54?AM (MST)
LAST EDITED ON Oct-12-19 AT 06:53?AM (MST)
Comules - definitely not trying to be aggressive or start a rift here, your response certainly proves you hunt the unit more than I have or will. I am not an ATV guy so I do get on foot and I've hunted off (above/below) trails in 421, 411 mostly and to clarify, by top I am referring to the flat top of the GM proper, either side of 65, FS 100, Lands End etc. If you know of areas on the top where elk hide out, more power to you. I don't. We all have different experiences. In my experiences, the upper parts of the mesa sides are productive early, and some of the elk stay but things can get an abandoned feel pretty quickly. Surely elk hide out below the rims, that's mostly where I have hunted. I have been up there in August, Sept and Oct and I've hunted bow, muzzleloader and 1st rifle. Right up to the talus rocks. I have been up there with early snow cover and at least in the areas I hunted, bear witness to the scarcity of elk where they would be relatively easy to locate even two weeks earlier. I understand they can move about, here today, gone tomorrow, under the best of circumstances. However, drive downslope and look into the oakbrush along the private boundary in certain places and herds with mature bulls can more reliably be glassed in daylight hours right from the road. Couple that with the "zone" (maybe unit 42?) where i've seen many of the outfitter camps, trailers, and stock, as well as seeing those camps with racks down low and not much but luckless guys "up top", as well as speaking with other hunters and folks moving cows or mending fence and some knowledgeable truck drivers who work on FS roads, and it just seems to me that saying the majority of elk stayed up top might have been pushing it in a general sense. I have no hunting experience for muleys out there but I can also say I see a TON more on the the lower private, say down around the junipers/oaks heading to Cedaredge or in ag fields towards Colbran. but its a big unit(s) and anything goes, I am glad you know the area and the herd movements as you do and I hope you have nothing but success up or down that mountain as you see fit.
