Snow on the way up to scout
I don’t know where all the elk have gone but they seem to have been replaced by a ton of moose. So yeah, elk modern firearm season is well under way (make that 3 days in out of an 8 day season) and they have managed to evacuate Eastern Washington forests. As my last post noted, I did some scouting. I went out again on Friday to do some last minute scouting to see if I could find any sign of elk. Believe it or not, it decided to snow! There ended up being an inch of snow on the ground by the end of the day. I wasn’t surprised when I didn’t see any elk. I’m sure they were hiding out trying to stay warm. I did, however, manage to see one coyote out of a pair of them that had been running down the same road I was following. It was running across the meadow I was scouting. It is the first coyote I have seen that I could shoot…and I didn’t have my .22-250! I suppose I wouldn’t have wanted to shoot it anyway since I was scouting elk and didn’t want to get them too spooked prior to the season start.
So as it turns out, I went up to Chewelah on Saturday with my buddy Brian. We were hunting the GMU 117 side south of 49 Degrees North. This was only after we had gone to Mt Spokane and found that the main gait to where we could hunt was closed due to road conditions. Not only that but it was super foggy and the clouds were being blown up and over the mountain through the trees by a raging wind. Wasn’t going to happen. Instead we moved locations and spent a good portion of the day about half way up the mountains near Chewelah stalking a long unused road that had been burmed off and was overgrown with bushes. We noticed fresh bear sign and I did see one quadruped that was most likely an elk but may have been a large mule deer. I am clinging to the thought that it was a cow elk that I saw. I really only got a look at its rump as it started slowly hopping away through the insane brush. It was pretty grey like a muley but the rump was more like that of an elk. From what I know, the Rocky Mountain Elk are pretty grey compared to the other varieties. So who knows, but I continue to hold out hope. The rest of the day was pretty much uneventful…and no more animals of any kind…except for the annoying squirrels that need to be thinned something fierce.
Mountain morning panorama
Sunday was a little more eventful. But still no elk. First thing in the morning we got up to the top of the mountain and started glassing for any elk moving in the early morning. I had a sneaking suspicion that we wouldn’t see anything because fish and game tend to arrange the hunting dates so that the elk can move around at night and rest all throughout the day. Gotta love hunting during full moon cycles. We did manage to see 5 moose though. The first two were a cow and her calf that my father spooked. The third was another cow (I think, didn’t catch the head) walking on the other side of the same opening as the first two to bed down for the early morning. It was a while before I saw the next one. Around 2pm after having walked a couple of miles down a rarely used side road, I was coming back and heard something snapping twigs like I had spooked it and it was taking off. So I slowed down and got real quiet and started stalking around the corner I was at. It kept moving like it was just walking around up above the road. I wasn’t sure what it was as the brush was too thick and I couldn’t see more than maybe 25ft up the bank. I finally got right below it and began to watch hoping it would turn out to be an elk. It started browsing on some shrubs, yanking leaves off and grinding them up. I was pretty certain it was a moose or an elk but hoped for an elk. It finally moved and I caught some dark dark brown with a couple small patches of light brown. I started to think that maybe it could even be a bear…of which I would have shot since I still haven’t gotten my black bear this season either. I watch for another couple minutes and finally saw it’s big moose nose. Damn! Oh well. At that point I was pretty much directly in view of its head only 50ft away on the road. So I decided it was time to bug out. I started sneaking slowly off and I stepped on a twig or a loud leaf and stopped. The moose caught that and snorted at me not knowing what it was. I decided at that point that it might be a good idea to just turn and start moving…fast. So as quietly as I could I stalked off at a fast walk. Thankfully the moose stood there and didn’t come charging after me. I would have very much disliked a pair of nubby horn stumps (he was young and didn’t have horns yet) in my back.
Once I got back to the truck where my dad decided to take a nap, we decided to drive back up to the top of the mountain and glass some more before dark. Maybe something would be moving just before nightfall. As it turns out, there was! It was the fifth moose for the day! Bet you couldn’t see that one coming. On our way along a road at the ridgeline we came around a corner to a moose walking down the road. As soon as it saw us it turned around and started trotting off down the road a ways and then up to the ridge. We glassed the side of the mountain until dark and saw nothing else whatsoever.
All in all, I got some good exercise and it was a good weekend out in the mountains. I hold high hopes that I will at least see an elk this year and maybe even have a shot at it. If anyone knows of a specific place to go in Eastern Washington to hunt elk with a large amount of success, I encourage you to send me a message and let me know where that would be. I’m not worried about massive bulls or anything like that, I am in it for the meat. I have a nice 6×6 I got while on a guided hunt in Idaho with my dad some years back. Not much to top that other than a raging monster bull.
Tags: Chewelah, Eastern Washington, elk hunting, Hunting, moose, Spokane, Spokane WA, washington
