Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Elk Smell

Being a rookie, got a question of elk "smell" that guys talk about. I know that in warm weather and maybe into the rut they use wallows, etc.. I'm going to CO in 1st rifle season, will the elk still have a smell if downwind of them as the rut/wallows taper off???

Yes.

29, Under good conditions, a wet snow with little wind, maybe a breeze, I have on a few occasions been able to locate elk by their smell.. I can think of at least two times while still hunting the odor of elk tipped me off to elk in front of me.. A bit farther on, I spotted them standing quietly in the timber.. For me this only happened on damp days with little wind..But if you have a good sense of smell I would guess you could smell elk any time..

If conditions are right, it's possible to detect them by body odor. I have poked through enough rumen contents in my career that I can detect both elk and deer at pretty good distances upwind when they are ruminating ("chewing their cud"). You never forget the smell, and it doesn't take much.

Yeah, I've smelled them a number of times--or their empty beds!

And where they urinated all over the place.

Mostly, they just smell like a horse.

Musky-urine smell to me.

Their not far away when you smell it.

Not really, it's pretty distinctive.

Not at all like like a horse. Once you've smelled it one time you'll never forget it.

They have that distinctive odor year round.

Bumped into about 20+ head today 30 miles from the nearest forest out in the middle of sagebrush desert. Once downwind of there bed ground, the aroma was there.

I was trying to be diplomatic.

Its a musty barnyard smell. Once you smell it you won't forget it or forget to slow down and get into still hunt mode.

I think Elk smells GREAT!

I know it's great when I am smelling one..LOL

My elk last year went into some aspens after I shot him. We searched for a while thinking he was lower down the hill. I caught scent of him and started going up hill and found him. I have smelled them several times and not seen them.

Elk smell more like cows (cattle) to me than horses. If you walk up on an area where they have just bedded and left you will know the smell right away and kick yourself for not approaching the area differently. Done that a couple of times while hunting areas I wasn't familiar with. Probably scared them up and over the next mountain for someone else to shoot.

Love the way elk smell....different from any other animal and yep, like the others say, you can smell em downwind.

I agree with Chadster...to me they smell more like cows than horses. If you walk through a meadow where they were grazing through the night, you can definitely tell they were there.

Several times I've smelled them in the morning when the're above me and the early morning thermals bring their scent downhill to me.....and according to my wife, I've got a terrible sense of smell. Sometimes I wish she was with me 'cause her sense of smell is amazing!

We also found a dead bull shot by another guy in our hunting party due to the "rutting bull" smell.

I don't think they smell even vaguely like a horse. They have their own smell...and in the right conditions, it can be powerful stuff.

Me too