Elk unit 10 Question

[wisconsinfarmer]

I spent the last 5 days 4 nights in unit 10 bow hunting Elk and I have to say I'm still pretty new at Elk hunting so I'm not an expert. I packed in 3 miles and set up camp never seen another person seen tons of sign, but never laid eyes on an Elk. Seen 5 deer had a pretty nice buck at 40 yards and kept dogging him, but he kept feeding away. I sat down wind on some meadows that were a few hundred acres and just glassed them a few mornings and evenings and nothing, but a few deer. I was at 11,000ish feet was I to high? Or maybe just a bad few days?

Going back next week and am just trying to understand what I'm doing wrong to not even see anything.

Thanks for any replies.

 

[mmwb]

You may be a bit high, but you say there was sign... How fresh was the sign? Elk can cover a lot of ground in a few hours time. Cover a lot of ground yourself until you find where they are at and then focus on hunting that area. I used to hunt more south of that area in the years past. If there are any openings, get high and glass at dusk/dawn and see if you can locate them. They need water, will bed in cover and need to eat. Keep all of those things in mind.

 

[Whiterock]

I will be in unit 10 in a couple of days. Hope I have better luck finding elk.

 

[jm77]

I've been moose hunting up in the Snowy's since Sept 1 and if you aren't hearing elk, you're in the wrong place. Good idea to get away from roads, but keep moving!

 

[wisconsinfarmer]

Thanks for the advice guys! All the sign I seen looked to be within a few days, but they very well could have moved on or out. I've got 4 days for rifle so I'll just keep on moving if I'm not on fresh sign. The area I was in had water everywhere and not just from the rain so it would have been pretty hard to focus just on water
.

 

[Murphy]

Are the Snowy's as crazy with 4 wheeler traffic as the Sierra Madres? I swear I thought they were filming a new road warrior movie last week. My wornout hips can't outhike them anymore.

 

[wisconsinfarmer]

It's not most of the roads that are shown on maps have been closed for sometime and there are some big area that are foot traffic only, which keeps most of the people out of there.

 

[eelgrass]

Have you tried bugling just to try to get a response? That may help locate some elk?

Good luck, it sounds like you're working hard!

Eel

 

[Whiterock]

I will be arround rock point this week end

 

[Whiterock]

We spent 4 days scouting and no elk..seen deer and moose but no elk.

 

[Whiterock]

We were kicked out of our camp ground today.Two days into our elk season and Forest Service came thru and said we had to leave as they were closing the camp ground do to government shut down.

What is with that? Closing a primitive camp ground and ruining our hunt.
Arround 16 camps ,all elk hunters had to tare down camps pack up and leave. I looked for another camp spot but they were all taken with in 5 miles in the forest.No where to put a 23 foot camper so were headed home.