I've got to jump in here, better late than never. I give elktracker an "A" for his general hunting technique, it's real close to my own. However, I give him an "F" on his shot recommendation. For most shooters, a spine shot is just not a reasonable option.

I really wonder where this "stay out of the bedding areas" mania began. Actually, I already know. It's borrowed straight from the whitetail hunting world. You watch hunting mags over time and they invariably bend any whitetail hunting rule into an elk hunting rule given enough time. Whitetail hunters have long touted the dogma of staying out of bedding areas, and now we've got that dogma infecting elk hunting.

I've just got to ask, how the blazes do you stay out of elk bedding areas? Maybe some of you guys are hunting elk on a different planet than me. What do you do, stand out in the middle of a meadow all day? No? Then guess what? You're in a potential elk bedding area.

In country I hunt, about 70% of the total land form is good bedding habitat - that's virtually all the north and east faces, and good portions of the south and west faces. Calling any particular localized area a "bedding area" may work for writing articles or describing a hunt succinctly, but in the elk world it's just not that simple. They can, and do, bed all over the place.Again, unless you're standing out in the open all day, you're doing your hunting in bedding areas.

In some, not all, whitetail situations I can understand staying out of bedding areas. That's true when you've got one or two 20-40 acres woodlots per square mile. Obviously, the deer are going to bed in those limited areas, and if you only have access to a smallish hunting plot, there's no real percentage in blowing deer out of their hidey holes.

While I haven't seen every block of elk habitat in America, I have yet to see one that even roughly correlated to a whitetail situation where you should "stay out of the bedding areas". (I have backpacked and observed elk in NM - Gila Wilderness, CO - Weminuche Wilderness, UT - High Uintas, WY- Bridger, MT - Bitterroots, Big Hole, Clark Fork, Front Range, Missouri Breaks, Bob Marshall, ID- Frank Church and Selway, and WA - Cascades.) Notice also, that I'm talking about bow hunting, everything I've said is magnified 10 times if your hunting with a rifle outside the rut. In rifle season, unless you burrow smack into the middle of bedding areas all day, every day, you probably ain't going to see an elk, let alone shoot one!

In short, the saw about staying out of bedding areas is one that needs to stay in the whitetail lore, it has little practical use in elk hunting. I realize I'm crossing swords with some pretty formidable elk minds on this website, and I nod respectfully to them, knowing I won't change their minds anyway. But for those of you relatively new to elk hunting, if nothing else just keep my minority view in mind, someday you may see what I mean.