Idaho Early Season Elk Hunt
I’ve wanted to shoot a velvet elk for a while now. So this year I applied for a hunt to help me accomplish this goal if I was able to pull the tag. Well the Idaho draw results came out not to long ago and wouldn’t you know it I drew one of those tags. I knew this hunt would be different than any other elk hunt I’ve been on previously. I did a bunch of escouting and made my way up to Idaho. I arrived 2 days before the start of the season and immediately realized that I was correct. This country was different. This hunt was really tough mentally. The elk just weren’t here and honestly neither were any other animals aside from (moo) cows. On my 5th day of hunting (7th day overall) I called the biologist. She was really nice and told me I was in a great area I just had to wait for a bull to move through otw to the irragated fields. She said the resident elk population was zero. Over 8 days of hunting (2 scouting & 6 hunting) I had seen 2 bulls trot across a ridge 1.5 miles away, 1 bear, and a handful of antelope. I was getting really frustrated and I was seriously considering just going home. I hate the idea of quitting, but I didn’t really know what else to do.
On the 6th day of the season my buddy called me to tell me that a friend of a friend had found a group of bulls about 4 miles away as the crow flies. I headed over to that area and glassed all day, but didn’t turn anything up except some antelope in the flat country. I am not used to getting my butt kicked all over the place on a hunt and that’s what it felt like was happening. Things can change in the blink of an eye and I decided I would road hunt on the way back to camp and road hunt the remainder of my hunt, because I felt like I just needed to cover ground and there are a good many roads all across the unit. I slowly worked my way back to camp glassing as I went. The last few minutes of legal light I came around a corner in a tight valley. There were two bulls standing there. Both the same size. The other one might’ve had more velvet but this one was broadside so he got it. I hate the idea of road hunting, but I had tried everything else. Hiking and glassing and glassing and hiking. This bull is far from my biggest, but I worked hard for him and it all came together in the end.
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Originally Posted by Mars Bluff
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