Originally Posted by
elkman30
Or once you hike past where they stopped at a 1/2 mile on the trail, you could find much better animals with less pressure. Or just have a good time knowing you went further than 99% of hunters do.
Yeah it is amazing what burning a little shoe leather can do to increase your odds of success. I once took a really good 5x6 bull elk that was 7 1/2 miles from the nearest road. Never saw another hunter on that trip and I packed that boned out bull out on my pack using a pack frame in 3 trips. The day after I got him all packed out and was all loaded up in the truck ready to drive home I had several trucks come by and say I must be "lucky" because they hadn't seen an elk. Yeah, I was real "lucky" and the 7 or 8 smaller bulls I passed on were "lucky" too. I found out the farther away from the road I was willing to walk, the "luckier" I seemed to be. Magic!