wolfs and elk

[wahoo]

has anybody competed with wolfs while hunting elk ? I hunted this week and all the tracks I found had wolf on them and Monday morning they sang until about 11. Can I still hunt or do I need to pack up and move? Will elk respond to calls if they are bird dogged all day long? Last week I found a fresh elk leg but also a lot of elk sign. Any suggestions

[John Scifres]

I'd move.  Some say that the wolves will concentrate the elk.  Find the concentration and you are golden.  Kind of like elkherding.  We had them in the area we hunted in Central Idaho last year.  We found elk in the next valley over.

[wingnut]

Change basins and find one without wolves.  I've hunted both ways.  One thing for sure is the wolves will make the elk be very quiet.  Real hard to hunt them like that.

Mike

[et]

I had a bull talking this weekend in area with plenty of wolf sign. He was however a younger 5x5. When I have found wolf tracks on elk tracks the elk were always gone.I have one area that I'm not sure the elk have ever returned to. It looked like the trails behind the animal shelter and I last saw 1 cow there 2 years ago. I will go check again this year but it appears to be a permanent relocation.
4 years ago when the wolves started to effect hunting, in my area, it seemed that they caused the elk to bunch up and it was an all or nothing tale. This year and last year I have been finding smaller groups of elk then pre wolf days, so who knows? In talking with good callers they are reporting that higher pitched bugling has been more effective in wolf areas and others are reporting less of the deep "I'm the bad a$$" bugles in the woods. Almost back to the days of the copper pipe bugles. I'm not sure if it is natural selection or if the elk are learning to keep the bugles from traveling to far. I assume 2OLD would have the best insight into this phenomena.

So, in brief my experience has been that a couple of tracks-no big deal elk could still be in the immediate vicinity; lots of tracks and recent kills-no elk  and move on.
et