Lord willing, tomorrow I will harvest my first elk. Drew for the Ft. Sill archery hunt, actually, everyone the tossed their chip in drew, some better spots than others. Going to be a long 1hr drive to be in position well before day break @ 0627.
For tomorrow I drew training area F2, a tiny parcel of land that borders decent area. Hoping they are bedded on my side and feed on the other, didn't have time to scout.
Could sure use some :pray: and I will be also.
Go get 'am Al....good luck. Please get back here and let us all know how it goes! Take some pics too! Oklahoma Elk ought to be interesting.
Can't wait for Monday......headed out on Sunday night!!
Your fellow Okie.......
Good luck! Let us know how it goes!
:thumbsup: :thumbsup: Good luck! I hope you have perfect weather and get to see an elk or three. And let us know what happens
Rusty
Al, The best of luck. First Elk, hope you are a lucky man this hunt.
Best of luck my fellow Okie. I've taken a cow elk at the Wichita Mountains Wildlife refuge which borders the base as you know. Ft. Sill picked the best site in Oklahoma for it's location. Please tell us all about your hunt.
My dad drew a cow there years ago and didn't get one. Will be looking forward to a report.
Good luck and let us know how you make out!!
Not gonna be picky: if it's brown it's down!
Good luck, elk hunting is awesome
I was down there last December. Rained for two days and was foggy, even got some sleet. I got lucky and managed to tag a nice 6x6 the first morning.
Not the biggest bull there but with the conditions as they were I was glad to get him. Still wonder though if I should of held out.
Good luck to you! I might head that way next weekend. Good thing is that it will also be deer season.
It would suck to drive 4 hours and not draw though.
Good Luck! i hope you get a crack at one.
Bisch
Good Luck
Good Luck! Hope the rain holds off as well.. Be sure to post all about it win, lose or draw!
Pouring here in the Tulsa area! Let me know how you do. I'll probably head that way Friday a.m.
Saturday was a bust. Most anything that could go wrong did: misty rain all day (though not too bad) then came a total down pour around 1430. Oh, and at 1400 I realized that after lunch I locked my keys in the truck. It was either so thick that I couldn't move through at all or a barren hill side that a rabbit would stand out on. I saw a few bulls, all on trailers being hauled out from other areas.
Bulls ranged from 475-575 dressed, most with decent head gear. Several of the guys said they heard and saw bulls bugling and glunking, others, like me, didn't hear a thing.
Sunday was better. I got a much better area, D2. HUGE area! The early morning looked promising. Through the fog, rain & haze I swear I could see elk shaped objects running around about 150yds away but when the sun finally lifted there was nothing there.
I ran into a couple guys and got some great advice and moved about 2500yds away. There were two small hills (called Rocky Twins) with a decent saddle between them. The plan was to parallel them hoping to find some animals in the timber at the base. (It's called Rocky Twins for a reason!) But since the wind was wrong I had to make a loop around to the back side. Once in position I found fresh tracks about 150yds in. Fresh enough that even though we'd had 2.5 days of solid rain, some in total down pour, it still had perfectly crisp edges. I tried to track them a little but they seemed to disappear, the one path that looked like an elk could travel was devoid of anything.
The tracks were adjacent a decent water hole (not that every depression deeper than an inch wasn't totally full) so I decided to watch the hole for a while. BAD idea!
Waking up at 0330 to drive in and it was now 1045, next thing I knew it was 1115 hearing a doe blow behind me about 50yds. Got up and tried to follow those tracks better, seems they went through the trail a piglet would have trouble traveling much less a 700lbs animal.
I kept following the tracks for the next 600yds or so and it kept being amazed at how thick of brush they could walk through without leaving much any sign at all. I would lose them on one side of a brush pile then find on the other side.
About 2hrs from when I had walked into the area and found the bull had literally stepped on my prints from my way in. Dejected would be an understatement.
One of the other guys in that zone saw a cow a bit later while he say on the top of the bench. I had pushed her out while trying to get to where he was sitting.
Did see a coyote and a couple does but wasn't deer season yet and the yote didn't offer a shot.
All in all I had a great and very tiring time. Hopefully later this week the quota of bulls and cows will not have been taken.
Razor:
Call (580)442-3553 before you head, they will tell you if they have met the quota yet or not. Gotta be there at noon to put name in the hat for the drawing. The draw is for a place in line to pick your zone, as long as the zone is open they will put people in there. Opening weekend there was nobody that didn't draw.
Starting today they are also adding 2 deer hunters per zone also, so up to 6 people in a zone though you can hunt both elk and deer at the same time just not harvest both on same day.
Any zone around the impact area is great.
Sounds like I better wait until next year and do some research. How do you think the deer hunting would be after the elk safari is over?
Its always great. Even better since most guys are working during the week. Though you will be competing with units in the field training, so some areas may be closed.
Almost every area has big bucks, some bigger than others. Some areas have true monsters, 180" plus.
Is it random draw also or can you pick areas that aren't closed to training?
I'm not certain on the archery deer. I highly doubt there are ever too few spots open, even when there is lots of shooting going on. That leads me to bet that it's a walk in and go type thing. You have to go to Sportsman's Services to sign out and they have an overlay of that day and following range activity.
hope we see pics!
I do have some pix from the top of the mountains.... will try to get loaded on here in few days.