Ultimate Elk Hunting by Jay Houston

Author:Jay Houston
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Creative Publishing international
Published: 2008-06-12T16:00:00+00:00

Highly pressured elk often will only leave the cover of timber in the last few moments before dark.

A bull’s sense of smell is his Number One defense.

Stalking Factors

Okay, what if you do see that 6 × 6 bull or hear cows talking from your lofty perch, what do you do now? Here is where you have to get smart and commit—the stalk. It’s time to reach way down inside to that hunter-gatherer embedded deep within your DNA and come alive. It’s right now that you need to take into account all the factors that may affect the outcome of your stalk.

Factor #1: Wind. The first factor to consider is the wind. While your high school geometry teacher may have taught you that the shortest distance between two points (you and the elk) is a straight line, there is a better than average chance that this straight line isn’t going to work for your stalk. You would be surprised by how many times hunters do just that. They see or hear a bull and unthinkingly move directly for the animal without considering the effects of the wind.

An elk’s sense of smell is its number one defense against a predator, and like it or not, that’s exactly what we as elk hunters are—predators. One whiff of an elk hunter, whether it’s from the bacon and eggs that you ate for breakfast stinking up your gear or from that bar of soap you used last night, it doesn’t smell right to elk and they will be gone like a shot if they wind you. Before beginning your stalk, develop a plan that takes the wind into account. If this means, and it does more often than not, that you have to plan a circuitous route around the elk to approach them from a more favorable wind direction, then that is what you have to do.

Factor #2: Geography. Many times this type of stalk requires you to walk much farther than a direct approach would have and to cover some pretty nasty terrain. This is where your level of commitment will be measured.

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