RedRiver,

A response to your thread along with a little story telling that may or may not apply to your situation--- take it for what it is worth....

That "bubkus" thing can happen under the best of circumstances, especially sinceelk don't necessarily "hold" in a given area like deer but tend to be more "hit and miss".The "no elk year"is particularly easy to run into, if you have been elk hunting just a couple years and have a "sweet spot" whereyou have always had good luck and henceyouconsistently "bank on"that area each year. The elkmay have been in the general area withinseveral miles, just not your drainage.

FWIW, we set up our main camp in an area with good roads going in multiple directions and not specific to any one of a series of reasonably close by "zones" all within about a 6 mile radius/12 mile diameter of that camp. Immediately after setting up our main camp, we scout our favorite areato see if the elk sign is there, seeing or hearing elk is great, but the main thing is we just check the watering holes and study the tracks in the mud, if there are plenty of tracks (as in mud all tore [trampled] up), then it is Plan A as usual (probably happens 70% of the time).

If no tracks or not enough tracks at the water holes, then Plan B, we abandon that area and quickly scout the other areasand set up our spike camp there if itappears heavily populated, or Plan C, divide up our groupand do day hunts from the main camp in and out of several distinct areas with no spike campif there is only modest elk sign across the board. That waya group from our camp should get intothe elk one way oran otherand since we all get multiple elk tags, we don't really have to worry about the "party hunting" rag because any one hunterwill have his hands full if he shoots two elk and two hunters with four elk down will have done our camp proud.

Especially under scarce game conditions or what we thought would be scarce game conditions, whichever groupgets into the elkgets right after the programlike they mean business since our mission is more of a "tribal hunt" than hunts for individual accomplishment. We have had ocassions though,where we have had to get on the radios and call "cease fire" where we were legal with tags to spare, but forGod's sake don't shoot any more, it's a warmweather trendand we've got two days of hauling on the ground already.It is good to be all wrapped up by noon the first day and the money for the unused tags goes to a good cause. On to packing them out and doing the subsequent in camp butchering and freezing --- BTW it takes a lot of beer to butcher an elk and everyone has a good time! From time to time we'll havea pair of huntersout in the woods after the main push, looking to add another elk to the tally; sometimes not.

Not sure how you run things, but I'd rather show up two days early and have the flexibility of making that adjustment for Plans A, B, or C and "trade away" two days off ofthe tail of the season if need be. The comparatively lazy nature of the scouting days in the midst of God's gloryand then the followingstrategy session offiguring out the "placement of your chess pieces" on the elk hunting chess board to me can be more rewarding than the moments of the kills.

As an aside. We are after meat (big racks are okay and fun, butmake for more burger and jerky), and like yourself, a good time (the most important thing). We do have neighboring camps and it is a friendly competitionbetween campsto seewhichcamp is most productiveand we do enjoy that a lot, especially when there are "new and inexperienced neighbors" that are fortunate enough to "get into them" but don't have horses and haven't considered how they are realistically going to move those carcasses.Man, those boys look tired!Sometimes you just gotta help thosefellas out, just likemy Michigan mentors did with me so long ago.

Anyway, we invite thosevarious camps over for banquet night (usually 3 days before the opener) to eat, drink, tell old war stories, claim bragging rights from the prior year, and compare general scouting notes witheach other for the up coming opener. Among the more successful elk camps there is typically a LOT going on the week before the hunt, the more of that you canget in onthe better it works.