elkcrazy8 is correct, and I will add that bulls sometimes if pressured become nocturnal during Oct. They still have to and do eat a lot to make up for a loss of energy used in the rut. And to put on a few extra pounds of fat for the soon to be comming winter. In my expereience elk in Oct stay away from the big parks/meadows. Look for places that have lots of thick timber dotted with tiny meadows throughout the landscape. They love it when they can feed close to safety. They will stay out longer in the morning and come out earlier in the afternoon if safety is close. Plan on long days you better be in place where you want to hunt before sunlight and stay out until you can't see. This means of course you will be traveling in unknown territory (to you) in the dark from and back to camp. Some it doesn't bother at all and for some it does. I myself with bow in Sept. never see camp in daylight, and if I get 5 hours of sleep per day, I am doing good. As far as location well like I said before the wolves have caused a lot of problems in that area. I am not saying that there are no elk there but its nothing like it was 5 or even 10 years ago. Elk were everywhere in central Idaho. Depending on where you were it was very common to see 200 plus elk a day. But thats no more, and thats the reason why there are so many out of state elk tags in Idaho. Idaho has always had a limited number of out of state tags on a first come first serve basis. Back before the mid 90's if you wanted to hunt Idaho, you bettter have bought your tag within the first week that they became availiable. But now there are so many left over out of state tags that we as residents can buy the extra tag. Paying out of state fees of course. I am not trying to scare you off, I am just telling you the honest truth. Now with that said there are still a lot of elk to be found hunted and shot in Idaho. But IMHO from the reports that I have heard about the middle fork zone it doesn't look good. And hunting in Oct, will only lessin your chances. If you knew the area like like the back of your hand. I would say go for it because you would know about the honey holes where you can still find elk come heck or high water so to speak. Have your friends hunted there before, if so that will help greatly? I myself have never hunted any units in the middle fork zone. I have hunted unit 28 in Salmon Zone still which is still part of central middle Idaho and borders unit 27 thats part of the middle fork zone. I do know a outfitter who used to guide in the middle fork, but doesn't anymore. If you want I could call him, and if he is willing I could give his # to you and he will have a lot of info about the area. Also I assume you planing on a drop camp? Just to let you know I realy realy like most of the out of staters. Why you might ask? For the most part they are well prepared and take their hunt very serious. From my experience they willing to talk and work with me. Meaning that when I have bumped into them on a mountain I will say what area do you plan on hunting the most and when? Also I will tell them "well I plan on hunting this area over here or overthere and I plan on hunting this time" from there we seem to work out a plan that keeps us both out of each others hair. They respect my area and I respect theirs as well. That makes it easy for me and them to both have a good chance for punching an elk tag, instead of fighting over an area and the elk. Do you plan on trying any elk calls? Yes some elk calls/sounds will still work great in Oct. I and others here can let you know more about that in another post. That a whole subject by itself. Hope this helps let me know what I can do thanks Jason.