Cool!! :cool: I just spent the past 20 minutes with my hoochey mama and sceery cow talks "talking" to a herd of about 200 head of elk about 75-100 yards from the house. It's clear as a bell outside and the little bit of moon put just enough light to see the elk as they are feeding through the sagebrush. I got to brush up on my "lost baby" call and "come here you silly kid" call. Got lots of answers and a couple came pretty close to see what was going on. Too bad it's not light enough to take some pictures.

Tomorrow I'll have to go look at my fences to see how much damage they did. :( I could hear the wires screaching as the elk went over and through the fence.

But for tonight I'll be content to have been serenaded by elk :D

Very cool!

recoil,
We have a similar situation here in our little valley. We got about a foot of snow over a week ago, then a bit of rain on top of it, and now it's below zero at night. A hard crust on the snow is tough on the animals for getting at the feed. The elk are roaming in the neighborhoods, and I just drove by a beautiful 5-point bull 15 minutes ago, but dang it, I didn't have a camera.

They hung around all day but I was to busy helping Ben work on his car to get the camera out. I'll have to get after it tomorrow. Even with almost a foot of snow, there's still plenty of feed around here. I'm sure we'll have elk grazing around the house again tonight. They especially like the stuff that grows over the septic tank and drain field. :D

Must be tough - having elk herds in the septic system! :d

Yeah kdub you end up with stuff like this in your yard!!!

Saw the first bunch this am when I went out to feed the chickens and was wondering what they were looking at besides me. After waiting a few more minuets I got to see the big bunch but they were too dern far to take pictures of. musta been over 1000 head all together. You can see them on the skyline if you look real close.

recoil,
A beautiful sight, those chocolate covered raisins & Mtn Dew! Outside of Yellowstone, I don't think I've ever seen as many elk as your last pic, with a line of them all the way down in the trees.

How are your fences holding up, Recoil? That sure is a lot of animals for this winter. Is there enough feed in your area to support that heard or will they have to get to an area for supplemental feeding to survive?

My fences are taking a beating. The fence on the north side county road has the 2 top wires sagging pretty bad and there's a couple posts broken off on the south side of the county road. There's a pretty good trail where the elk cross all the time. Hopefully nothing will "stampede" them. That's when the fences really get it. Last year when the "road hunters" were chasing them all over the elk tore down about 300 yds of fence between me and my neighbor to the east.

We had a pretty good year for misture. Not a "normal" year but there's plenty of feed. There's alot of winter wheat fields, CRP land and BLM right around here. The elk shouldn't have too hard of a winter. Out at the mine the elk live on the reclaimed land and do really well. There will be between two and three thousand head winter on mine property. I'll have to get some pictures of them too. It's pretty cool to watch Cat 777's hauling coal stop and wait for the elk to cross the road That's a daily occurance now. Surprizingly only one or two get squashed a year.

I have to "run the gaunlet" on the way home from work on swing shift. There's three herds between here and town that spend the day on one side of the highway and then cross the road to graze at night. A lot of the time there are elk standing along side the highway and just look at you when you go by. I only go about 45 mph most of the way home, that gives me a better chance to get whoa'ed up if one should decide to step out in front of me. :eek: There's been three get it so far this week. An elk can do a tremendous amount of damage to your Buick.

recoil,
I don't have the numbers you have, but I took this pic out my back door this morning, with the elk approx. 250 yards from my back fence. No horns, just cows and calves.

Not two minutes after I took the pic, the elk scattered and a #*&@ blasted dog came over the hill chasing them. We've been having about 2 weeks of -5F temps at night, and that's tough on them, and then they have to burn energy running from a dumb dog. :mad:

Always cool to see elk or deer when they are that close to the house. I took a short trip up the road from the house this afternoon on the snowmachine after the Chargers beat the Colts. (Yea Chargers) Saw probably 500 head in the wheatfields. It was snowing so hard I could only see about 1/4 mile even at three o'clock. I didn't stick around and left quietly :rolleyes: so I wouldn't spook them. They were still there on my way back and not overly concerned about me. Did get in the midddle if a herd of 250-300 antelope but they were already running when I got into them. They were camped right by the road anyway.

I'll have to close the gate to the pasture up on the hill so the horses can't get up there and the elk will be more likely to hang around closer without the horses bothering them.

I'da shot the %?{&%%##!@$$*& dog. We've got a cow dog cross mutt that has one more chance. I'm not going to say anything to anybody if I catch him chasing deer or chickens or even rabbits, A .22 to the head and a quick trip up the rode behind the snowmobile/Expediton depending on the weather. That dog is dumber than a bag of hammers. The wife says it's because he's just a puppy. Well what will he do when he's full grown? A fence post listens better than he does, at least the post pays attention.

Great pictures...how many elk tags can you get per year? Here our herd is only maybe 1000 animals and they make sure to keep them at that as when there are more, they cause some massive damage to local farms and they complain quite a bit.

I'da shot the %?{&%%##!@$$*& dog.

Yeah, I know. I have a soft spot for dogs though, and I know I'd be within rights to plug one chasing game but I probably couldn't live with myself if I did that. That's when I need one of those over/under doubles with a shotgun, and give it a 60 yard blast to the butt with 7 1/2's and I'll bet that dog would stay closer to home. ;) A pack of them would be different.

M1: An individual can get up to 3 tags per year as long as 2 are from the "B" list. What that means is; (talking rifle only)You can put in for a special draw unit like unit 2 (which is a draw only area) or put in for a cow tag in a specific area, say unit 13. If you don't draw for unit 2 you can either be issued a general bull tag that is good for any area in the state where it is legal to hunt elk or your 2nd choice areas as a cow tag. You can buy "left over "cow tags at any licence dealer but they are area specific. All tags are only good for one season. For instance 1st rifle was 10-15 thru 10-19, 2nd combineed was 10-22 thru 10-30, 3rd combined was 11-5 tru 11-11, 4th season was 11-16 thru 11-20. A combined season is one where you MUST hunt both deer and elk but if you have a cow tag you can hunt that cow in first season and deer in 2nd or 3rd season and elk again in 4th season. Are you all confused now ?? I am. You can also hunt bow season, muzzleloader season and any of the regular rifle seasons IF you get a left over cow tag for that season. I don't know how it all really works and I think you can acctually get more tags than three IF you know how to go about it. Seems like Lil' Chucky ended up with 4-5 tags. But maybe that was counting him and his wife. Then there's late season cow tags and crop damage tags and on and on and on. You bout need a lawyer to understand it all. for all the poop go to http://wildlife.state.co.us/

shawn: Pretend they are wolves or coyotes. Those are dogs too :D Ya big softy. :rolleyes: