Podcast 28 – DIY Elk Planning with Jacob Coons

Planning your first elk hunt to a western state such as Colorado, Idaho, or Montana can be extremely intimidating due to many moving parts. Today we are joined by Jacob Coons who shares his tips and resources for planning a successful DIY archery elk hunt. For someone who is new to elk hunting, Jacob sure holds a wealth of knowledge about scouting, physical conditioning, gear and strategy.

Jacob has also developed an elk hunting training course titled: 12 Months To Elk which he created to help fellow elk hunters to be more successful on their first hunt. Make sure to listen to the full episode to receive a $10 discount code.

Topics Covered In This Episode Include:

• Jacob’s background and what he does for a day job in the medical industry
• How he got into hunting as a young kid and then re-found his love for hunting after taking a break from it
• Making the decision to go on a first elk hunt and who to go with
• Nailing down which state to hunt and process of ultimately choosing which one to hunt
• How to look at all factors when pinpointing a specific area or unit by checking harvest statistics, hunter numbers, and talking with local officers and biologists
• Breaking down planning an out of state elk hunting trip to a granular level to really focus in on key details and terrain features
• Digital scouting and what resources are available to DIY elk hunters to help scout an area from thousands of miles away
• Weighing the risk of hunting in Grizzly country and how him and his hunting partners prepared for that
• Making the decision and weighing the factors of which week to hunt based on the rut, moon-phase and weather
• Using mapping tools such as onXmaps and developing a game-plan for each day of the hunt
• The importance of having a backup plans to fall back on
• Deciding on the hunting style and weighing the differences of bivy-style backpack hunting versus hunting from a camp near the road
• Determining how much food and water to pack for a week-long back-country archery elk hunt
• Tips for purchasing the main gear essentials which include: boots, packs, clothing, and camping gear
• Tweaking your bow setup, adjusting arrow weight, increasing yardages, and changing broad heads
• Physical conditioning for your first public land elk hunt and how to involve family to keep things fun
• Walking through the things you should be doing on day 1 and 2
• Calling styles and determining how to pursue an elk based on certain scenarios
• Recounting the first few days of his first elk hunt and how everything played out
• How Jacob used a cow elk Heads Up Decoy to cover movement and get within archery range of elk
• The moment of truth and how everything went down with his first archery elk harvest
• Tips for packing out meat and how to prepare for getting a mountain horse out of the back-country
• The top three things Jacob would do differently and what he is changing for his next western elk hunt
• 12 Months To Elk – an educational training course that Jacob developed to help plan your first DIY elk hunt