sabotloader

We headed out again this morning at the break of dawn hoping to beat the HEAT... Headed to the Butte to check sign and trail cameras.

My neighbor is a string and stick hunter and has placed a couple of cameras on the side of the mountain.

I continue to be surprised by the amount od sign in the dirty dusty road on the way up the mountain...

The first camera revealed a couple of nice Whitetail - one a real shooter and the other and up and comer...



But disappointingly - no elk on this camera at the mud wallow...

Continued out to the next camera again sign in the road but not near as much as on the way in. Last week, I asked my neighbor to place a camera on the end a Potlatch haul road. The camera was placed off the end of the road on a big game ridge top trail.



At least we got a couple of elk...

We did pull that camera and decided to look for another place for it farther out the ridge. We ended up on a pioneered Potlatch road just below a clearcut on the ridge top. Right at the end of the road two springs had popped out of the cut bank and it appears elk are coming off the ridge top through the CC and down to the road for a refreshing pause. In fact quite a few of them... Be interesting to see that memory card in the next couple of weeks...

Muley Hunter

That's some thick terrain. We have some like that here too, and it's a pain to hunt.

cayugad

Do they allow hunting from trees there? A nice tree stand would be a good observation and hunting platform. Those are some nice looking animals.

sabotloader

You bet they do...

cayugad

That's where I would be then.. up above the thickets where you can see. That is a nice looking buck.

gregrn43

What elevation was is that at sabotloader? I always kinda thought whitetails stayed in the river bottoms out west?

bronko22000

Sabot, I can't think of a bad trip to the woods. My friend has a sign in his basement that reads "When I grow weary I go to the woods." I couldn't agree more.

sabotloader

Just looked on the topo... 4467 ft. Whitetail are pretty much all over the map here.

We have far more Whitetail in northern Idaho than southern.



You can see the density in this map is up here in the north, which is not real flat...

bronko22000

I hunted near Stolle Meadows, ID a couple times. Unit 24 I believe. Got a nice blonde phase black bear there and another time I walked up on a bedded 6x6 bull elk 2 days before the season while still hunting for muleys. He never knew I was there and I was within 50 -60 yards of him.