Alsatian

One last thought. My first time or two elk hunting I remember feeling a bit daunted by the mountains or the wilderness. My thought was "It is so remote! It is so distant from things! What if I get lost?!!!" You don't want to get lost, naturally, but in retrospect I think the prospects for getting lost are a lot less likely than I felt at the time. If you keep oriented you will have no trouble. If you were walking on a trail and leave the trail, go back to that trail on your way back. If you walked uphill from your truck, your truck is downhill and on a road from your present position. If you have a GPS device, it is comforting to put waypoints in for things like your camp, your truck, where you stopped for lunch. It is also very good to enter a waypoint for your kill site if you get an elk! You should be able to find your way back to the kill site easily if it is in the open, but what if it is back in the woods?

As a corollory to my concern about getting lost, I was also fearful of things like being out after dark or thinking about field dressing an elk in the dark. I wasn't afraid of the boogey-man or a werewolf, it was just an vague indefinite fear. I was conscious of drawing back and hunting less aggressively than I could have. For example, one evening I stopped my hunt at least 30 minutes maybe 45 minutes early because I wanted to get back to my truck when it was light -- I was afraid I wouldn't find my way back out of the woods in the dark. Chances of that problem were just above zero. I HAD marked my truck's position with a waypoint on my GPS. The truck was downhill from my position and on a road. To find it, I just had to go down hill till I hit the road and then go one way of the other to find the truck.

So, have a decent respect for the woods, but don't psyche yourself out. You can navigate using crude orientation skills. You can walk in the dark (you have a flashlight with extra batteries, right? You should have a headlamp which makes life a lot easier when you do have to field dress an animal after dark). You can push yourself physically. Continuous motion is more important than rapid motion in the matter of covering ground and getting somewhere.

Keep your eyes open. Notice things. This is just general good advice for any hunting.

Muley Hunter

I'm not a fan of a GPS. I don't want to put my life in the hands of an electronic device, so i've never owned one. I'm old school though.

I scout a lot, and will know an area very well before I go hunting. However, I can certainly get lost when i'm scouting a new area. I use florescent plastic tape. Not the type that sticks. I'll make my trail that way so I can return on the same route. Make sure you hang it so you can see on the way out. Not on the way in. I know that's basic, but i've seen it done.

I talked to the Forest Service, and they're fine with doing it as long as I take it down on the way out.


Simple, cheap, and so far it's been foolproof. I worry about someone taking down the tape, but it hasn't happen so far. Not many people are where I go, and none during off season. Even during hunting season i'll use it sometimes. It's never been taken down. I figure if another hunter see's the tape, he'll just use it to get back out too.

Alsatian

I agree. You don't want to be dependent on a GPS. I use it as a convenience and as a comfort. I like to use flourescent tape too, primarily for marking my kill site if needed. Last year my elk died and slid down into a shallow ravine in an area of multiple such ravines. I flagged a big evergreen tree at the head of the ravine.

I also tend to carry a magnetic compass and 1:25000 USGS topographic paper map in my pack. But I would rather use the GPS, when it is working, than resort to the compass and topo map. Both of these are backups. It is preferrable to just simply remember your way back out using gross orientation skills. I think I have always simply been able to rely on my gross orientation skills so far.

If you do carry a GPS, carry replacement batteries. I tend to turn mine on only when I'm marking waypoints and then turn it back off. Granted, each time you turn it on you need to wait for it to refind the satellites, but I'm not marking that many waypoints -- camp, kill site, truck if that makes sense, and often it doesn't.

My GPS is the Etrex Magellan, or something like that. It is about as inexpensive as they come and does not have a lot of features. The waypoint feature and the ability to select "goto" waypoint to have the GPS direct you to the selected waypoint are the most important features. There are some nice extra features like telling you what sunrise and sunset times are in your location. Also, you can find out what your elevation is, just for curiousity sake.

Orion/CO

Setting up a spike camp can be a good idea, but just remember that an elk will take about 4 round trips to pack out, you might be able to do it in 2 or 3 trips if you bone things out as much as possible and take a heavy load , but you then still have to go back and pack out your camp. So if you are 4 miles in, then you need to hike about 32 miles roundtrip to get everything out in 4 trips. At 12,000 feet(which is at or above timerline) in mid October you can expect any and all kinds of weather, but it can get nasty up that high. By the way, the statistics you read were the number of people who were surveyed and not the number who hunted. Out of 1,000 tags, only 480 replied to the harvest survey, but that it still a representative sampling to show that the average hunter was only 20% successful (which is about the statewide average). Which if you account for the cow hunters and those who shoot raghorns or spikes in the later seasons, the odds are more like 1% of getting a 6x6 bull. In regards to the gaiters, yes I would recommend them. Even if you are in the rain or a few inches of wet snow, the gaiters will keep the lower legs of your pants dry from walking through the underbrush, and if you are in a spike camp then you will be limited to the amount of clothes you can pack with you so it will be important to stay as dry as you can. The last piece of advice is to sit on meadows (watching them from just inside the treeline)at first and last light when elk come out to feed. Saddles are also a good place to sit and wait. The majority of elk I have taken are by watching meadows and catching them out in the open, but again its early in the morning or late in the afternoon. I have skinned and quartered several elk in the dark (by myself), so it pays to have a good headlamp, a good length of parachute cord, game bags, a poncho, and drinking water with you in your pack, and know how to find your way out in the dark.

Fair2middlin2003

Wow, I am learning a lot just reading these posts. Some very good advice.

MILLERTIME10

I agree, I can't thank these guys enough for all the helpful advice and info they have shared. It really helps out!!!

Champlain Islander

I have been hunting for 50 years and have become lost when I was a teenager and it wasn't fun. I became good at using a compass and maps as well as basic line of sight navigation. Along came the GPS and I bought one and what a wonderful device it is. I always have a couple of compasses on me and still use them and my GPS is basically my backup. I carry spare batteries and always make sure that I know where I am during the day when I am in unfamiliar land. I turn it on periodically just to verify that I am where I thought I was. Near the end of the day it comes in handy to get back to the truck and gives me more time in the woods since I am sure I will be able to find the truck. I hunt out west in vast places as well as the deep woods of Vermont, Maine and New Hampshire. Parking a truck at the end of a logging road requires exact location coming back otherwise you could miss the end of the road by a few hundred yards and never know it. When it is getting dark it is nice to be able to use that GPS.

Fair2middlin2003

Good information. I was a instructor in the military for a while and land navigation was one of my strengths. With a good topo map and a lensatic I can find myself out of most anywhere. That is if I can see. Reading these posts its appearant that they may be situations in which seeing your surrounding might be impaired. A snowstorm for example or just a stalk that ran late. Its very easy to be a few hundred feet off your mark even when following a compass when the azimuth your following is miles long and you have no visablity. I think I will invest in a decent GPS for a backup myself. This isnt my thread but thanks for the heads up guys.

friscospices.com

Good info. My first Elk hunt this year too. Better quit the burgers and beer now so I can get back into the bush. Thanks for the advice!!

Topgun 3006

My Garmin GPS with the landownership chips for the various states that not only show where you're at, but also whether it's public or private property, is invaluable when you hunt places like I do where land ownership is mingled together. Add to that the trackback feature that shows the exact route you traveled if you leave it on the entire time you're out, combined with all the other features they have are great. I still carry a good compass and map, as well as a backup compass and plenty of batteries for flashlights and the GPS, so I can stay out right until last shooting light before heading back to camp or the truck. That's when I've shot almost all the better animals I've taken or else right at first light because I was able to get way back in using those instruments in the dark.