Decision: Go Opening Week or Wait a Week?

Hi,

A group of us newbie Elk hunters have been inspired by Randy and put in for a Wyoming general tag 2017. We are beginning the planning stage and have a question that i hope the guys on this forum can help with.

Before i jump to the question, here is a little context. We are all simply interested in having a good time and putting elk in the freezer. Trophy's would be great but cows would be trophies to us too. We are not road hunters and really like Randy's approach as it is what we've done to hunt deer for many years. we like to get away from the roads and enjoy burning boot leather. We have not settled on an area yet but are looking at the CO/Wyoming border.

The question - Is it generally better to hunt opening week where the crowds will likely be higher or to wait a week and come in after the activities settle down a bit?

Any guidance you can give is sincerely appreciated.

Best,

Jeff

Welcome to the forum.

To provide a good answer, the question is, "You coming for archery or rifle?"

If archery I'm going the first week. The elk are still not pressured from hunters out there with their Hoochie Mamma call sounding every 2 mins. The second season of archery is better where I hunt but I feel they are starting to pattern the hunters a little more and become a little shy and cautious. Just my .02.

Also depends on the area. Elk are good to hunt early in the season but pressure will be greater. Sometimes all those people get them moving around a bit more.Things can get really hectic the last week of the season.

I've hunted Wyoming before. Here's what I've found.

The mtn may be crowded on opening morning or weekend. My two most favorite days to hunt are Wednesday and Thursday. Choose to hunt the archery season. Hunt 2 or miles away from roads. Hunt a week or more after the rifle opener...if you have the patience.

Rifle. thx

Thanks, Ibirch. your feedback is confirming my intuition.

I've mostly bowhunted for elk, but did do a rifle in a general unit in Wyoming this past year. Our definition of a trophy was similar to yours. We picked a unit with a mid-week opener and got there 2 days early, which gave us 1-1/2 days to do some glassing. We located and patterned a herd and the three of us filled our tags with fat cows on opening morning. We would have had a decent bull, but an outfitter saw us ambushing the herd and had his client start blasting away at him from almost 700 yards away. The bull was bugling and coming through the trees right at us, just out of sight and right behind the cows we ended up shooting. Not sure if they got him as they came down to ask where he was when they shot because they "were too far away to tell." He then warned us not to scare "their" elk out of the basin while we were packing ours out.

Other than that little hitch, our plan worked out perfectly and we'd do it again in a heartbeat. All of our freezers are full of delicious elk meat, and to top it off we had elk tenderloin on the grill along with fresh caught trout for supper. It was a great trip and I can't wait to get back. For us, getting there early to find unpressured elk worked out perfectly.

Thanks, Wiser.