Star,
The trout lakes area is decent, but it gets hammered pretty hard. I'm a bowhunter and have hunted the unit many times. I'd reccomend, especially for the second rifle hunt, you look on the Eastern side of the unit. The areas around Tres Piedras and Canon Plaza. I would especially look and scout Fillipito canyon and the areas around the Jaramillo ranch. The elk in this unit love the tall, dark timber with lots of blow downs and know how to play cat and mouse, so get into the thick stuff, hike until you start finding fresh sign and then sit. I killed my first bull in 51 just this way. We walked right through them three days in a row, seeing fresh sign, hearing them skirt away from us, assuming we had blown them out of the area. Yet every day, there was more fresh sign. Finally on the fourth day, I snuck in as quietly as I could to the place where I was seeing sign and just sat down. About 20 minutes later, I saw my first elk of the whole hunt. (a cow) About 15 minutes later, my bull came creeping by on the same path.
Good luck. It is a beautiful place.
