Two cows, two calves and a spike elk pass my ambush location one night when I wasn't there.
Sitting in my ambush spot waiting for elk to pass by at 13 yards.
A Leupold RX-1000i range finder. I like this little range finder with a Bow mode and it fits perfectly on my Browning Bino Hub.
The only trees near this muddy spring was a cluster of really small ones. I was able to use the Browning trail camera mounting bracket and cinch it around several of these small trees and made a pretty darn solid location for the camera to watch the spring.
With the heat, lack of vacation time and the lack of elk that I have seen on the trail cameras the past couple of weeks, I decided it best to save my vacation to hunt when the elk are talking more. I only went out elk hunting on the opener and the following Friday and Saturday.
Friday and Saturday I decided to sit in an ambush site I had picked out while scouting. The 5x6 with shed velvet walked right past this ambush the day before opening day. The site provides a great place for me to shoot an elk as it walks past at 13 yards. Unfortunately, nothing passed my ambush Friday night and Saturday morning while I sat for many hours each time.
Saturday around noon I started rounding up all the SDHC cards from all the cameras to see what activity had taken place the first week of the hunt. From reviewing the videos on the trail cameras there still wasn't much activity however there was a cow and calf the show up from time to time on the cameras. In fact, Friday evening while I was sitting in my ambush location the cow and calf were captured on camera about 200 yards to the south of me. I would shoot a cow if she didn't have a calf with her.
After reviewing the trail camera video footage on the mountain on my Galaxy S3 phone I decided to move one of the cameras to watch a spring closer to the center of most of the elk activity.
I just love having the cameras to help me know what is and isn't in the area. Without the cameras watching the area I would be very discouraged with three days of hunting and not seeing or hearing a single elk. Now I would admit there aren't the elk in this area right now like there were in mid-July. It's was crawling with elk in July and they all but vanished about the last week of July. I would go elsewhere but the elk in this area have moved into the local giant CWMU and unfortunately, that's a no-fly zone for average income hunters like myself. Anyways, I really enjoy the extra challenge and the trail cameras are giving me the faith that it will come together either with my archery tag or with Dallen's late September youth elk tag.
