How To Read Elk Wallows and Capitalize

It was the third day in a row when a buddy called asking me to help him kill a bull. It was his second year of bowhunting.

“This bull is using a wallow every day,” he began. “I’ve sat on it but the bull hasn’t shown up; must be coming at night. Can you come try to call it in for me? I know it’s not far because I can smell it every time I go near the wallow. You should smell the place...”

“You should smell the place.” Those words struck me. Everything my friend said after that sounded like the teacher on the Peanuts cartoon. Although I’d not seen the spot he was hunting, I knew what the outcome would likely be, but I appeased my buddy’s mind and was there the next morning.

Going in I knew it was going to be an opportunity to educate him, and that the chances of killing the bull would be slim. It was mid-September, with 80-degree temperatures every day. The hike into the canyon was long but not hard. The more we dropped in elevation, the cooler the air became. A nearby creek kept the surrounding vegetation moist.

Strong Scent

When we rounded the corner on an old logging road, the sweet smell of elk in the rut permeated the air. It smelled fresh, but was it? I stood looking, studying the land and thinking. “C’mon, let’s set up and call,” my buddy demanded. “That bull was just here. That’s how it smells every morning.” I ignored him.

The wallow was easy to find; green grass flourishing in a shaded, wet spot. I knelt by it. “Was this track here yesterday?” I asked him, pointing to one on the edge with sediment still suspended in it.

“I don’t know, this is the first time I looked close at it,” he said.

My buddy’s mistake was that he was making assumptions based on what he smelled, not what he observed in the actual wallow. I put my foot in the wallow, next to the elk print. I lifted it and light brown sediment swirled in the pool. We watched it for a couple minutes.

Hyperfocus

“What are you doing?” my buddy asked. “There’s no flow in this wallow. See how the sediment isn’t moving or even settling?” I asked.

I found two more wallows near this one. They weren’t easy to see due to being surrounded by brush. Same thing—neither of them had a current. There was no doubt a bull had been there. The pools were murky, though, not running clear. The grass around them was matted down and covered in mud. I picked up a handful of the dried mud and sniffed it, then moved it toward my buddy for a whiff. “That’s strong,” he said. “That’s old,” I said.

We kept moving down the draw, now on a game trail. Dry mud was splattered on briar bush leaves. We found two rubs on cedar trees. The sap in both was dry and the strips of bark, curling on the edges, void of moisture. I’d not been to this place before and was eager to learn more. We covered ground, saw nothing fresh, then headed back to the truck.

We passed by the wallow I’d stepped in. The move was intentional. It had been three hours since I’d stepped in it, yet the suspended sediment looked nearly as it did when we left it. You get a 700-pound bull rolling in this and it will take days to settle. This bull was likely only here one time, working its way down the draw and it just kept going. It was the only track we saw, not even any cow sign. Though the stench of the rutting bull was powerful, it was likely miles from us by now.

Clues to Success

On a public-land hunt high in the Wyoming wilderness one archery season, two buddies and I came across the most impressive rub line I’d ever seen. More than 20 pine trees had been worked over, all on the same trail atop a timbered ridge and all within 50 yards. We split up, taking different draws to learn more. It was the day before the opener, our second day of scouting. Each of us found fresh wallows and trails covered in splattered mud. Trails were going up and down the hills, most of them connecting to the trail atop the ridge where the rubs were. For the bulls, it was nothing to move up and down the mountain, but for us at just under 10,000 feet in elevation, it was hard on our lungs.

The next day each of us had a place to hunt. We stuck to trails inside the timber. Our thinking was because there were so many bulls on the move, we’d intercept them between wallows, creeks and ridgetops. It worked. One buddy and I arrowed big 6-points the first morning. We spent the rest of the day packing out the meat. The following morning our other friend tagged out on a big 7x7.

On a mid-September bow hunt in Montana one year, a shallow swale I entered reeked of bull elk. The days were hot and the gentle hillside below a spring I’d found was exposed to the wind and sun. The droppings I inspected were hard, even in the middle when I broke them open. The area smelled strong of rutting bulls, but the water was crystal clear. I grabbed a stick, swirled it around in the water and got sediment moving. A current swiftly carried the fine sediment downhill. The rest of the heavy sediment quickly settled. Then I mucked it up with my boot. In a couple minutes, it was like I’d not even been there. In places like this, bulls can wallow and leave little sign, at least nothing that appears fresh in hot, windy conditions.

I looked around and found one splash of mud on a dry leaf. By the angle of the splash it was easy to see the bull had come out of the spring and headed straight uphill. I followed and found more splashes. In the early morning, in shaded timber, the mud splashes were frequent and still wet. The bull wasn’t following a trail. It was walking through thick, waist-high brush.

Minutes later I reached a big stretch of flat ground covered in timber, let out one cow call and the bull bugled. One more cow call brought the bull within spitting distance, but it was day one of a 10-day hunt and the 5x5 wasn’t what I was looking for.

Two days later I found a big wallow high on a hillside. Multiple trails led to it. It was muddy and deep so I studied the sign all around it. I spent nearly an hour working in circles around the wallow. Every splash mark I found was at a severe angle, not straight down. This indicated the bulls left the wallow on the run, either because of the pressure of competing bulls or the immediate need to tend their cows. With bulls being so rut-crazed, I moved downhill into the rising thermals and called in the timber. Multiple bulls answered.

Over the next four days, I called in 11 mature bulls on that timbered ridge, passing two big ones I should have probably punched holes in. But this was a premium tag and I was looking for a 380” bull or better. I saw two, didn’t get shots and went home empty. I did call in a nice bull for a friend who arrowed his first elk.

Note the Details

Studying wallows has taught me a lot about elk and elk hunting. When you find a wallow, don’t just look at it, closely inspect it. See if there’s a current flow that quickly whisks away sediment and any fresh sign. Look for nearby tracks and trails and scour the area for wet splash marks. Search for nearby rubs and closely inspect them for freshness, something that’s easy to decipher based on the condition of sap and shredded bark.

If you locate a pool of water from a distance, walk to it for a closer look. It might be a drinking hole, a wallow, or if it’s big enough, both. The information I’ve gleaned from wallows has accounted for many thrilling encounters.

Don’t assume wallows are shoo-ins for killing a bull. Bulls often approach them with caution, sometimes pausing on the outskirts to make sure all is safe before moving in. And don’t be like the guy I found one morning, hunting from a treestand at the edge of a waterhole in the forest. At the base of the tree he was in, a four-wheeler was parked, covered in pine boughs, five feet from water’s edge. Bull elk will do crazy things when rut-crazed, but they’re not stupid. I shook my head and walked away. The hunter had no idea I was even there.

The more wallows you inspect, the more you’ll learn about elk and how they use them. Consider how temperature, humidity, wind currents, sunlight and shade impact sign in and around a wallow. Even if there’s no water, elk will wallow. I’ve killed some nice bulls on dry wallows, but that’s for another edition of Game Plan.

---