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oyeager76

Unit 8 Late Rifle Hunt

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Hello, 

I am new to elk hunts. I have done it once in unit 10 and could not find anything. I am trying to do as much research online as possible. This years, I have unit 8 which is south of Unit 10 and I am going for cow. Some questions I have are, Can cow elk be down in by calls? I have a bugle that I bought online and I also have a call called Baby Hoochie Mama. Any success stories with these types of calls for cow. 

Also, two weekends ago, I drove up to Williams and drove around the area to do some scouting. I did not see any Elk. I saw some droppings from Elk but they were dry and old. I saw several deer but I was not going for them. I have researched that Elk do not like snow and will go down to lower grounds if there is snow in the mountains. So, I am hoping there will be snow up there when I go in Dec. One other questions, I have quads that I wanted to take up there during the hunt, I never see anything or hear of anyone using quads while hunting. Do you recommend them or should I stick to the hike? 

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Unit 8 has lots of elk, but it has lots of campers and atv  and utv traffic  ALL  spring, summer and fall.  You will see very few elk from the roads during daylight hours.  We see some driving in the dark, but not many.  Every elk we have killed was away from roads.  Use the quad to recover, not hunt.

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You could try and use a calf in distress call. You may be able to get some cows come running in to save what they think is a youngin in trouble. 

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33 minutes ago, CatfishKev said:

You could try and use a calf in distress call. You may be able to get some cows come running in to save what they think is a youngin in trouble. 

That has worked for me once out of about 20 times. When it did it was pretty crazy for a few minutes. They came to fight!

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Get away from the roads, and dont believe that elk only live in pine forests. If it is cold, get into the junipers and nastiest canyon you can find. 

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1 hour ago, thegunsmith2506 said:

That has worked for me once out of about 20 times. When it did it was pretty crazy for a few minutes. They came to fight!

I got one but never actually tried it.  I've been tempted when I've found some bit always preferred a stalk.  When you've done it did you blind call or see elk?

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6 minutes ago, CatfishKev said:

I got one but never actually tried it.  I've been tempted when I've found some bit always preferred a stalk.  When you've done it did you blind call or see elk?

I did after someone shot and missed. The herd scattered and we were in the middle of them.

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40 minutes ago, thegunsmith2506 said:

I did after someone shot and missed. The herd scattered and we were in the middle of them.

So the time it worked you mean? Were the times it did not work blind calling?

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I drove around there two weeks ago and found a big area that had junipers. It was pretty think too. I walked around in that area and saw droppings but they were old and dry. Two weeks ago, the temperature was kind of warm so maybe they were up high in the mountains. I will be there again this Saturday. I want to hike the mountains to sew if I find any traces there. 

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10 hours ago, CatfishKev said:

So the time it worked you mean? Were the times it did not work blind calling?

Yeah the time it was intentional and worked, was after a missed shot on a muzzy cow hunt. The only other time was on a bear hunt I was using calf distress and had a couple cows come in. On the early archery bull hunts I have called  in plenty of cows while trying to get the bulls to come in, but that was just regular cow calls, not calf distress. 

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In my opinion, the amount of snow up top right now, if any, won't push an elk down.  Get far from roads.

A quad is going to be very cold to ride starting next week, when the temps start to plummet.

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Heading up on the 25th for my bull hunt starting the 29th. Temps are dropping so hopefully we will get into some elk.

 

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