Monroe Elk

RyMan

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23
My little brother just found out today that he will be hunting the late season elk on Monroe. The hunt starts saturday so the chance for scouting is gone. We could use any help we can get. If anybody knows were we could find a nice bull please help us. I know the area around Koosharem but have no idea where to find the elk this time of year. Come on fello MM. Please help.
 
PM sent...wish I was going! Good Luck!



?The bugle of the bull elk echo?s through the pines, the north wind moans her lonesome lullaby, he hungers for the freedom of an eagle as she flies?somewhere beyond the great divide?
 
I have a buddy that drew it as well. Between him and I we have found some absolute pigs. If he kills early on I'd be happy to let you know where they are.
Traditional only >>>------->
 
Check:
South of Greenwich, to Otter Creek Res. at or before sun up. They hit the cedars early, you be earlier.

Top of Pole Canyon, then north and/or south.

Hunts Lake, above town of Monroe.

Poverty Flats, south of the town of Monroe to Marysvale

Mormon Peak area/Bear Valley North of Burrville.

North of the Narrows between Otter Creek and Kingston.

Very, very, few, if any really large bulls left on the Monroe, your basically going to be picking between at 290 to 320 bulls. A large bull or two many get taken but we looked over 100 branch antler bulls over the summer and this fall, including this week. Very few if any of those older, huge antlered bulls on the unit. The large antlered days are over on the Monroe and the Fish Lake. Deer are scarce and now we're killing elk from both directions, the spikes hunts and the mature bull tag numbers over the last two years on the Monroe have left the unit without either young bulls nor old bulls. She's headed south for now. Course, that was the intent wasn't it! A few more folks got to hunt but the consequence is what hunters are experiencing this year.

Hope your hiking deep into the canyons, far from the roads and atv trails and getting away from the all the fat, lazy, pumpkin headed road hunters and finding all those monsters that our friends up north are so certain are stacked up like cord wood back in there. Better yet, have a few of those super-hunters come on down and show you how it's done.

Actually, I wish you all the best and hope your hunt is all you hoping it will be.

DC
 
That is sad. I had heard there is now a shortage of large bulls on Monroe and Fishlake from all the other hunter posts I have read and friends who live down that way.

I spent 20 days on the Book Cliffs this year and hardly saw any mature bulls as well. Too many spike hunts and LE tags is bringing the quality way down. I understand increasing LE tags, but adding in the spike hunt in addition to the extra LE tags is just killing the quality.
 
LAST EDITED ON Nov-16-10 AT 09:09AM (MST)[p]Wow, from what I saw, I disagree. I'm not going to comment on game policy, but only what I saw this year during archery season. To say that there are only 300 class bulls is just silly. In just a few days, I saw multiple 340 class bulls and couple topping 350. In fact, I would think that for someone who hunted hard, a rifle hunt on that unit would be pretty close to a slam dunk for a big bull. Personally, if I had that rifle tag, I'd be holding out for something 350-360.
 
I don't think anyone said there are only 300-320 class bulls on the unit. There probably are a few in the 350 range left and if a person hunts real hard, they can get one. But calling it a slam dunk for that size of bull is not as realistic as it once was. Five years ago, I would have to agree with you. Even the mighty Pahvant doesn't have as many huge bulls on it as it did a few years ago, that I know for a fact.

How many of those 340 to 350 bulls do you think made it through the archery, rifle and then muzzy hunt this year. I am guessing not many, which decreases a late rifle tag holders chance of killing a 340-350 bull.
 
The late hunt is a whole different story than the archery. The unit has gone downhill. Guess I would think the guy that literaly lives on the unit might have a little better insight. But hey let's all just believe that if we see a couple big one that the unit is fine.

Bigpig,
How many days in the past 5 years you spent on the Monroe?

There are not enough deer in Utah...FOR REAL.
 
I agree the unit has gone down hill the last few years. I have hunted on the unit the last 9 years and seen fewer elk over the past few, but never hunted it this late in the season. Early in the year it's easy to see 25-30 bulls a day, but post rut??? Seems like they are all gone.
 
Now you know why someone turned in their tag, and your brother received a call. Good luck, I hope you guys find a big one.-+39.3+
 
Sorry, point taken and you guys might be right about the late hunt. My thoughts were referring to the early rifle hunt.
 
I agree that the Fishlake, Monroe, and Pahvant are rapidly loosing their quantity and quality of big bulls, as well as loosing the young bulls that usually grew up to be big bulls.
On my late Fishlake hunt last year, as a group we seen maybe 5 or 6 bulls that would even push the 350 mark. Scouting this year for even the early rifle hunt, was very disgusting to say the least. From what time I spent on Monroe and talking to others, the same frustration was felt there also.
The extra tags to allow more hunters to particiapate is good, but it sure is putting a hammer on the higher quality bulls. There is no way that either unit will exceed their harvest age class, so now let's see if the system works like it is supposed to be. The way I understand it, once the harvest of the age class is under the recommendations, then the permits are supposed to be cut back... Am I right?
If so, there should be less tags on most of the area units next season.
You figure how many good bulls are on the unit before the archery hunt, and then how many are left for the late hunt, after the archery, early rifle, and muzzy hunts are over...
They really take their hit by the late hunts..
Good luck to you on finding a good bull!
 
Just get the rifle out of the rut and you will see a higher age class. You can only issue very few tags with a 99 percent success rate!
 
AMEN Coyote_chaser! The rifle rut hunts just don't seem fair and certainly aren't good for management of older age class. Maybe issue 1 or two tags special tags (maybe to juniors) but hunting rut crazed bulls with a gun is just too easy, IMO. Hunting is fun because it is supposed to be a challenge.
 
Double amen, still haven't figured out the need to call in a bull to 50 yards in order to kill it with a rifle that can kill out to 500 yards...Way to easy, the LE rifle tags should be post rut, middle of October. They will still kill a lot of mature bulls, but make it a little more challenging.
 
Man what a few day can do. We went back down thursday mourning and started seeing bulls right off. That night we saw 5 bulls. One we thought would go 340, but he was missing a 3rd on one side and was getting dark so we could not get a shot. The next mourning we found 4 bulls together. 2 were VERY nice. 9 shots later we watched them walk over the hill. My little bro felt like crap. It was his second chance and he missed again. That night we found the biggest bull of the hunt, a 360 type bull that was not broken at all, but again it got dark on us. The next mourning they were all gone again. nothing but a small rag horn and we could start to tast Tag Soup. The snow settled in and it was hard to spot anything bedded down. That night we located a 5 point and with snow in the forcast sunday we knew this would be our last chance at filling his tag. This time he would make the shot count. It ended up being a great hunt with a lot of memories.
73381120101550.jpg
 
I agree with that idea. Make all the rifle hunts late hunts. Tough nuts if you don't want to do archery or Muzzle Loader.

If they do that though I think they better allow scopes up to 4 or 6 power on muzzle loaders, otherwise you will get a bunch of gut shot bulls left to die.
 
Nice job. Congratulations. Glad your hunt turned for the better. The Monroe was a challenge this year, for sure.

DC
 
>Nice job. Congratulations. Glad
>your hunt turned for the
>better. The Monroe was
>a challenge this year, for
>sure.
>
>DC


Amen to both the congrats to Ryman and to the fact that the Monroe was a challenge this year. It's comment's like the one stating that the rifle hunt in the rut is a joke and it's so easy that had me dissolutioned going down to the Monroe with an early rifle tag this year. I thought a 330-340 bull would be a last day cake walk, instead it was a very hard hunt. I can attest that there were smaller bulls taken off of that mountain this year. I only saw one really good bull come out during the 7 days I hunted down there. I was happy to have the chance to hunt it, but make no mistake about it being easy with a rifle. The rut this year held very little advantage for early rifle hunters. The elk would bugle from about 2:00 am to 4:30-5:00 am. Then they would shut up and go into the deep thick and nasty. We gave persuit, but good luck to anyone stalking blind into the elk bedding areas. I'm feeling pretty confident that when the average age class numbers come out next year that 2010 will be down from previous years. I'm also guessing that the hunter success rates will be down. I wasn't alone. I talked to other hunters that had only seen a spike and a handful of cows 5 days into thier hunt. I was lucky to take a 5x6. Going into the hunt I would have called BS if someone were to tell me that I wouldn't be coming home with a wall mounter. It sound's like the muzzle loader was the better tag this year. I talked to a hunter that took a really nice bull in the area I had hunted. He said his challenge was finding a bull that wasn't broken up, but that bulls were out and vocal all day long. This definitely was not the case during the rifle hunt.
 
Where were you all hunting? I was there during all 3 hunts. The elk were bugling strong til 10am then sporadically through the day, and real strong in the evenings. It was a down year and the elk were in different areas than usual, but I saw some really great bulls. The day I left my dad was fishing and had a true giant push his cows right down to the lake infront of him.
Traditional only >>>------->
 
Pines_N_Tines is right on about the Monroe. I got to hunt the Muzzle loader season, and I too had great expectations. Pre-season scouting I saw lots of decent left over bulls, but no monsters. During the season, I saw a total of one 2 1/2 year old rag horn, several spikes, and the rest of the bulls were medium sized 5 & 6 points that were either too small for a trophy unit, or broken up. The biggest problem I faced while hunting was the incredible number of other hunters that ran into me. I thought this was supposed to be a "LIMITED ENTRY" hunt. Well, it wasn't. There were literally hundreds of "SPIKE" and deer hunters running around spooking the elk. I'll tell you one thing right now, it would take a real idiot to ever want to hunt that mountain for deer. There simply aren't any buck older than 2 1/2 years, and all of those get killed every year as two and three points. I'm sure there were quite a few bulls left on that mountain after all of the hunts, but the age class is nearly destroyed. Lots of busted 4-6 year olds, but nearly all of the spikes are dead, and that doesn't leave much for future years to grow up.
 

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