heres another tip I learned early
anticipate the suns future location, in relation to where your going to shoot from when selecting a place, to set up, and watch an area.
picture this
youve found a extensive clear-cut area thats been logged several years ago and theres a stream running thru the area where the two slopes merge, at the bottom, you found a old log forming a great place to set up that covers the whole area , from the wooded location near the central stream, where you can see that the most likely point for game to appear from is wooded side draw , the problem you don,t anticipate is that its going to be exactly in line with where the sun seems to drop into the horizon at dusk, from your location and just at sunset the elk start to wander into the area , but while they are easy to see without the scope, looking thru the scope with the sun,directly behind the elk, makes taking a shot hopeless, and moving will alert the elk, you waste the evening hunt that day, but the next night you collect a nice legal 4x4 bull, when you applied what you learned and move to a different location about 150 yards higher up slope and several hundred yards further along the far edge of the clear-cut
your forced to take a 270 yard shot vs a 70 yard shot , but you can take your time and see clearly thru the scope, and you learn a 375H&H does a fine job even at almost 300 yards
btw
almost every time I back pack a 60-70 lb load of ELK out of some canyon the smarter guys avoid going down into I swear Im 90% of the way to having a heart attack, Ive learned to just make small goals, like making it to the next large rock or tree thats 50-70 yards away rather than think about the 3-4 miles and hours it takes many times.
you have a choice, hunt easy terrain near roads so you can easily remove any elk you shoot,and use a cheap pack,.....or hunt where there actually ARE decent ELK, and use a quality pack that distributes about 80% of the weight on your hips/waist
anticipate the suns future location, in relation to where your going to shoot from when selecting a place, to set up, and watch an area.
picture this
youve found a extensive clear-cut area thats been logged several years ago and theres a stream running thru the area where the two slopes merge, at the bottom, you found a old log forming a great place to set up that covers the whole area , from the wooded location near the central stream, where you can see that the most likely point for game to appear from is wooded side draw , the problem you don,t anticipate is that its going to be exactly in line with where the sun seems to drop into the horizon at dusk, from your location and just at sunset the elk start to wander into the area , but while they are easy to see without the scope, looking thru the scope with the sun,directly behind the elk, makes taking a shot hopeless, and moving will alert the elk, you waste the evening hunt that day, but the next night you collect a nice legal 4x4 bull, when you applied what you learned and move to a different location about 150 yards higher up slope and several hundred yards further along the far edge of the clear-cut
your forced to take a 270 yard shot vs a 70 yard shot , but you can take your time and see clearly thru the scope, and you learn a 375H&H does a fine job even at almost 300 yards
btw
almost every time I back pack a 60-70 lb load of ELK out of some canyon the smarter guys avoid going down into I swear Im 90% of the way to having a heart attack, Ive learned to just make small goals, like making it to the next large rock or tree thats 50-70 yards away rather than think about the 3-4 miles and hours it takes many times.
you have a choice, hunt easy terrain near roads so you can easily remove any elk you shoot,and use a cheap pack,.....or hunt where there actually ARE decent ELK, and use a quality pack that distributes about 80% of the weight on your hips/waist