My buddy has a bull rag for E3/E4, and has hunted 6 total days in the last 2 1/2 weeks without seeing a thing. Willing to go wherever at anytime, any tips or help would be most appreciated....
It has been a weird year for both elk and deer, don't know if it was the drought or fire but numbers of quality bucks seem to be down this year too. I know one of the herds the fire definitely changed some of their normal travel routes.
Gotcha. I only asked because the last two years while bow hunting I've ran into elk hunters, and they never seem to be out of their vehicles and never seem to be seeing anything.
We noticed the same thing with mule deer this year. Last year we took the kids to the badlands area for a youth tag. Must have seen 400 deer that weekend. This year with the same conditions (rain) in the same area we maybe only saw 40 in two weekends. I'm sure they are around but we couldn't find them.
Some for sure are hanging in those areas but those places aren't big enough to hold them all while they are rutting. The bulls need room to run there cows and get away from other big bulls.The past two years I think the average was 12 day before a hunter is successful on bull elk in that unit. I would put some miles on in those patches of public land that are bordering the park. They do travel in and out of the park. Don't give up yet there is still a lot of season yet. Good luck.