Help on BP elk hunting

[Bill Hall]

Hey now, I've drug elk out of the woods before. One time me and two other guys drug a big bull about a quarter mile. It was easy. We started near the top of a steep mountain and drug him about a quarter mile to the bottom. Almost ran over us a couple of times. When we got to the bottom of the canyon, the dragging abruptly stopped. :rotf: Bill

 

[longcruise]

A couple guys in our camp did something like that a few years ago. Once they got to the bottom of the hill, the meat came off the bones! :haha:

 

[TGJaeger]

Fly,
I've hunted elk for a lot of years and I'm about the same age as you. I really wouldn't worry about the rifle and load at this time. A guy I know shoots them with a .50 PRB and seems to do well with it. I would spend time selecting an area and more time getting into shape to hunt. The Rockies are man-killers if you aren't ready for them. Each of the last two years, we have had guys come with our group who couldn't walk from the camp up the first ridge. It is sad to see guys who have put a lot of time and $ into getting to hunt and then can't handle it physically. For your first hunt, you might want to look into a guided hunt or drop camp hunt. It will give you a taste of what you need to be ready for. At a minimum, I definately would arrange a local, with horses, to pack the elk out - BEFORE YOU HUNT.

For what it is worth, I chose a .58 flintlock with prb and 120gr of GOEX FF.

Best of luck with whatever you choose and enjoy the process. Elk hunting is a wonderful sport!

 

[BrownBear]

Fly,
I've hunted elk for a lot of years and I'm about the same age as you. I really wouldn't worry about the rifle and load at this time. A guy I know shoots them with a .50 PRB and seems to do well with it. I would spend time selecting an area and more time getting into shape to hunt. The Rockies are man-killers if you aren't ready for them. Each of the last two years, we have had guys come with our group who couldn't walk from the camp up the first ridge. It is sad to see guys who have put a lot of time and $ into getting to hunt and then can't handle it physically. For your first hunt, you might want to look into a guided hunt or drop camp hunt. It will give you a taste of what you need to be ready for. At a minimum, I definately would arrange a local, with horses, to pack the elk out - BEFORE YOU HUNT.

For what it is worth, I chose a .58 flintlock with prb and 120gr of GOEX FF.

Best of luck with whatever you choose and enjoy the process. Elk hunting is a wonderful sport!

I agree all the way round. Elk behavior is so localized, dependent on terrain, the month and especially the activity of other hunters. A guide taking you into an area for elk he knows well is probably the most certain way of connecting. But you have to be able to keep up when your lungs and body aren't used to thin air and steep terrain.

And you have to expect the unexpected. We rounded up cattle on a grazing lease the week before elk season and came up shy about 40 pairs. Three days into the season I took a horse back into the area to look for them. I rode past half a dozen huge RV camps and about a zillion quads around the edges of this big sage flat surrounded by Ponderosa pines, then cut across the flat toward an isolated grove of about 5 acres of Ponderosa right out in the middle. As I rode in one side about 100 elk squirted out the other, hot-footed it a mile across that sage flat and bailed down a bluff into the pinon/juniper on the flanks.

Must have been 150-200 hunters in the general area, and those elk made it all that way without being seen by one of them and not a shot fired. Go figure. :idunno: But that little grove out away from all the "action" is the first place I'd have looked for elk, BTW. And yeah, most of my missing cows were hiding in there, too! :rotf:

 

[TGJaeger]

BB,
Our elk camp is on a state road that is pretty rough - but - there is enough access that a dozen or so camps are set up every year within a mile or so of the road. Literally, one fourth mile off the road is a point of land, between two draws, that is very difficult to climb to. There are almost always elk on that point - and some are nice bulls. They lie there during the day and watch the traffic. The only way to get to them without being noticed is to climb the back wall. I did it once and it almost killed me - but I walked into four nice bulls. One of them came home with me - :grin:

The elk aren't stupid...why run when you can hide! Guides know those areas and can get you to them with fewer difficulties.