I am not sure why this is staying at the top but oh well thats cool. In teaching my archery education class this past week. I had a student who has his dad their. He dad was wise and a long time bowhunter, and I sure enjoyed his input and knowledge in the class. Anyway he only takes 4 days off work for bowhunting elk. He takes off a monday and tuesday, or a thursday and friday plus the weeked. He does this back to back weeks each year. That gives him 8 days to hunt during the rut plus two other weekends to scout and hunt prior to the rut. Of course this will not work for the out of state hunter. But if you live in a elk state and have a limited time to take off work that is the better way to do it. I admit that after 4 or 5 days of very hard elk hunting that it will tire the best of shape hunters out. I myself try to take opening weekend plus a day or two. Then come back for a solid 2 weeks for the rut. I do hunt hard, very hard. During my 2 weeks, I hunt hard for 6 days then I take it easy for a day or two. If I have a hot wallow that is being hit I will sit in a tree stand half days from noon on until dark. Or I will take an entire day off just to cool my jets and reenergize. Then I will hit it hard again until the end of my hunt. One thing to be considered too is that once the elk is down it takes a whole lot of work and some time to get it packed out. If you have to be back to work at a certin time that might limit where you can hunt on the last day because it might take a additional day to pull the elk out. I have had that happen to me back when I was in college. I took off a friday and weekend and killed a bull on sunday afternoon. By the time I gave the elk the needed 1/2 hour plus the short blood trail and then field dressing and deboneing it was almost dark. I had 4 miles to pack the elk out to my truck. I knew I couldn't do it by myself so I went for my familys help. My dad was a school teacher and needed to be back in school the next day as well. But the bull was in thick timber and I didn't have enough flagging tape to have a good trail to follow back to the bull. It was so thick it took me two hours in the dark just to get back to my dad and the truck. I was not sure if I could go back and find the elk in the dark or not. My dad made the suggestion that we go to the neares town 50 miles away, and make some phone calls letting people that we wouldn't be home until the next day and would both miss school/work. We made a good choice but still had people a bit upset that we both missed an unplaned day off. Lesson learned be flexable and tell people that if you are a day late you are packing out an elk! If that doesn't fly with them then make sure you don't hunt the last day even if you still have a tag. Unless of courese you want to loose your job or get kicked out of school.[:-][8D]