The evening air is becoming crisp and hinting of autumn days, glorious with colorful leaves and frosty

mornings and bugling elk. The season is upon us. And if you're like me, you've got your favorite elk rifle leaning in a corner

polished up for duty in several weeks and meanwhile you've transitioned your arrows to

broad heads and you're out practicing with your bow every chance you get.

In most Western states, if the archery elkunt hasn't already kicked off, it's about to.

So today we're going to talk about early season L cunning strategies.

These are scouting, glassing, stocking, ambushing, and calling techniques useful to both

bow hunters and those few lucky rifle hunters that have a tag that's valid during the rut.

To get started, let's define what the elk are doing this time of year,

and what sort of specific challenges that hunters face during early season,

Elkunning.

First, what are elk doing?

Now we always begin with the ladies.

Ladies first, right?

Cows. They're moving to traditional

rutting areas and in many cases that might be the same as their summering

ranges right but in some cases it's not and those cows will begin to

transition to migrate into the historic and traditional rutting areas.

Meanwhile, Bull bachelor groups are breaking up and the bulls are

also moving to their favorite rutting spots to join up with those cows.

And the bulls are brushing their antlers,

which is a method to remove the velvet, right?

...