Tree stand on elk beds

Last year I put a game camera on some elk beds in a area where we often see elk. I got several pictures of elk in the beds, they used them about every other day. Opening morning I set up 30 yards down wind from the beds. About 9:30 elk showed up but I got busted drawing back my bow. I sat there two more times with no luck. My wife bumped a bull while still hunting the area late in the week. I am thinking of putting a treestand near the beds and wondered if anyone has had any luck doing this. We sit water afternoon and evenings depending what our game cams show. The beds could be a good morning hunt. We hunt opening week in Oregon and have had limited success calling that early.

Can you find a consistent trail they use going to their beds? That's usually where hunters set tree stands, a ways away to catch them still traveling.

>Can you find a consistent trail
>they use going to their
>beds? That's usually where hunters
>set tree stands, a ways
>away to catch them still
>traveling.

Nothing consistent. The area around the beds is fairly open timber. Trail cam pictures show the elk coming in from the south but the elk that cam in opening day came in from the north

You blow elk out of their bedding area, and there is a good chance they wont be back for a while, or even at all. I would recommend NOT hunting a bedding area. Its their "safe space." If that is compromised. they are gone!

>You blow elk out of their
>bedding area, and there is
>a good chance they wont
>be back for a while,
>or even at all.
>I would recommend NOT hunting
>a bedding area. Its
>their "safe space." If
>that is compromised. they are
>gone!

yes indeed. I trailed an elk into a bedding area one time to recover it. There were 10 elk in there, I recovered that elk but the others never bedded there again, ever, I'm talking years and years, generations of elk. Find another way if you want to keep this spot for future hunts.

Ya messing with their beds, putting up cams and stands and just being in there in general is a bad idea. Unless you are trying to make them move somewhere else.

That being said I have jumped elk out their beds several times in a season in the same place but never day after day, and sometimes not the same herd, Good bedding area's will get use again IF they are good for the elk to feel safe bedding there.
I would try and find the wallow close to the bedding area and setup on the trail coming into them.

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To expand a little on this area, it is a low ridge with mostly open timber. On one side of the ridge is a 120 acre meadow, the other side is a main gravel road. It is about 3 miles long and about a mile from the gravel road up and over to the meadow. The area is criss crossed with small dirt roads, you are never more than 3/8 of a mile from one. Luckily the area isn't heavily hunted and the small roads get little travel. This ridge always has elk on it. The trouble is where? The whole area is good elk habitat. The few water sources are to close to the roads to make great stands, even though game cameras on those water sources often have elk on them all times of the day.

If I do mess up this particular bedding area the elk wont go far. This ridge represents 10% of the area we hunt so if this set of beds gets messed up it wont be the end of our hunt, it could even move elk to a more huntable area of the ridge.

We went scouting this weekend. I hung a game camera at the beds and another one a hundred yards away on a game trail. The beds look like they have been used, but not as much as in years past. There is a camp about a quarter mile away that hasn't been used the last couple years but had a camper in it this weekend. That can certainly affect how much these beds get used. All in all is looks like it might be a little tougher hunting. The small creeks have more water than the last couple years but the ponds are drier. I think the elk are more spread out than usual. We have 19 cameras hung so we will report back in three weeks.

i know elk are much more sensitive to human activity than deer are, so i think you are shooting yourself in the foot for messing with where they feel "safe". heres my personal experience with huntng bedding areas.

on the archery hunt of 2008, i spotted some bucks bedded in the PERFECT spot for a stalk. this spot has been used for a bedding area since the beginning of time. deer beds so dug out into the hillside, i could park a truck in. i got within 20 yards of 10 bucks that had no idea i was there. i shot one of the bigger ones, and 9 others ran off. it took 6 years before i ever saw another deer go bed in that area again. i had trail cams placed in there and hunted the area religiously... nothing. with the exception of a few does passing through. i cant help but believe those 9 bucks that ran off got educated enough that they had something to do with deer not returning in the future. fast forward to muzzy hunt 2014, i finally watched a big deer go bed in this area again.... hes now on my wall and theres 6 other deer still running around out there that know not to use this area, and im sure have passed the word on to all the other deer in the area i never saw a deer within 100 yards of this spot all of the 2015 hunting and scouting season.

the moral of the story is, messing with bedding areas is a bad idea for deer and elk. i would try to figure out another plan to get them before they get there or after they leave. they are more likely to stay in the area if you dont hunt where they sleep.

I'd find where they go to water and put up a stand there. I have had great luck with that. I agree if you scare them out of their safe bed zone they will be gone.