Glassing

[Lshort]

What is your technique for glassing elk. Do you have multiple coordinates to spend an allotted amount of Time if nothing appears, or pick one place and stick with it. I'm sure hunter pressure dictates. Just looking for opinions

 

[lancetkenyon]

Depends on the amount of area you can cover with binos. I grid everything. I usually start at the top, and work L-R, then drop so the bottom of the first view is now in the top of the new view, and glass back R-L, etc. If it is a really wide area, I will break it up with a landmark and do half at a time. But, I always look at each area at least twice, usually 3 or 4 times.

If I am high and glassing flats, I can sit for hours. Amazing how there can be nothing one minute, and a full view bull elk the next in the same location. But, it is usually an ear, rump, legs, antler, color, or movement you spot. If you see something that just doesn't look like it belongs, it probably doesn't. Stare at it and 50% of the time, it is game. Rare to see an entire elk, so don't LOOK for an entire elk. I glass from .5 to 3+ miles out. So many times, I glass past the same spots over and over, and find something I didn't see before, and viola', an elk (or deer) part seems to just jump out.

Also, knowing WHERE to glass is more important. North facing slopes, even on late hunts, has always produced way more game than sunny south facing slopes. Shade/shadows are important to game to stay concealed and stay cool. Pressured elk with move to the thick, nasty, steep stuff away from roads. If you don't want to go there, the elk are likely to head to that spot.

If I am glassing a single hillside, it is a minimum of 30 minutes, or a couple hours if looking at a range of hills. Can't tell you how many times I have glassed up bedded elk by seeing a single ear. Then, you really start picking apart every shadow and tree, and an entire herd materializes, hidden away. Also, move 25-50-100' and glass it again. Amazing what a 1-2* angle change can make in finding game. Most of these were glassed up after changing position by 50' or so.

 

[BillNye]

This is for moose and not elk but I'm sure it's broadly applicable. I usually work areas by watershed/valley where there's typically a standing katabatic wind in the morning and sometimes an anabatic wind in the afternoon if conditions are clear. As such, I start from a high point near the mouth of the valley, usually trying to position myself by first light and will spend an hour-several hours if theres really good visibility trying to pick out moose as they're at their most active in the morning.

When the sun comes up in full, I monitor for changing wind conditions and will rotate up one side of the valley or the other, staying below the ridgeline and stopping for 15 minutes or so at each prominence so that I can scan the valley again from each slightly different angle. Despite their size, moose and elk are remarkably good at hiding in brush so viewing a valley from as many angles as possible is of paramount importance when trying to pick out bedded or stationary animals.

If it's a clear day and the standing wind shifts to move up valley I will move with it to the head of the valley and finish the day glassing there. It can take a few days to work a large valley well enough for me to comfortably say I've identified most of the moose there, even working above the evergreen line.

As always, that's just what's worked for me and everyone has something a little different that works best for them.

 

[xsn10s]

I scan much like Lance does. And I also will sitting for hours or even days if I know there's game in the area. Glass clairty and accurate colors are more important to me than magnification. Movement, colors, and shapes like Lance pointed out with ears is how I spot the majority of my game.

 

[dfanonymous]

I don't usually stay in one place.

If it's a familiar area, I go to the general area and get as high as I can, traversing the ridge, saddle or whatever is wind appropriate glassing down into a mesa, valley, ravines, benches adjacent the mountain I'm on, etc.

If I've never been there, I find the areas that would geographically have a high probability of holding game on a map, look for glassing points, find it on a satellite, then mark in as a priority on the map.

For a 5 day hunt, I'll designate 3-5 areas across a whole gmu/unit/zone. In those areas I'll mark about 5-8 glassing points, again, based on geography as it relates to food, water cover concealment, game and season behavior. Those glassing points I usually hike to, and they are usually miles away from civilization.

I'm not really waiting for something to move around mid day. Often enough I find them bedded right where they should be. Mornings and evenings however, especially in early season, make it that much easier if you do happen upon a herd browsing/grazing.

I don't really do patterns per say, however when I do, I do it similar to @lancetkenyon, but I go right to left vs left right. This is because Westerners are so use to reading things left to right that the brain will filter out things it doesn't need to see. You pick up those anomalies better. Old military trick.