Setting Up a Hunt Unit Briefing for Your Hunt Unit

Setting Up an Arizona Hunt Unit Briefing with Arizona Scouting Adventures:
After preparing an in-depth scouting plan that contained all the right spots to scout, the Arizona Hunting Club set up an Arizona 5B North Hunt Unit Briefing for Lou and Steve with Arizona Scouting Adventures. The prerequisite to meet with this elite group of hunting scouts was a fully detailed and coordinated scouting plan. Children 18 and younger can attend the hunt briefings for free with one paid adult. Click here to sign up for an Arizona Hunt Briefing.


Click on the video below to get a short clip on the type of knowledge transfer hunters get during a Hunt Unit Briefing session:

The Arizona wildlife scouts sat down with our hunters and analyzed their scouting plans and graded their success rate. Based on years of experience and knowledge of the hunt unit, the Arizona scouts made quick revisions to our scouting plans and pointed out exactly where the animals would be located and what travel routes they would most likely be traveling.

Becoming One with Nature and Learning to Feel the Rhythm of the Forest:
The Arizona Scouts provided a great education session for the hunters on the Hunt Unit 5B North and taught them a lot about the actual chemistry of the animals they would be hunting. They made it a point to give the hunters a true understanding of what makes an animal tick, their habitat and how animals used terrain to cover their movements. The scouts were adamant about the teaching the hunters that understanding the animal’s needs and mentality was the key to understanding where animals would be at any point during the day.

The Arizona Scouts took the time to explain what makes animals move from place to place throughout the day, what type of habitat they prefer to eat, drink, sleep and breed and what type of areas animals like to gather for social communication.

In addition to learning about the animals and their environment, the Scouts also stressed the importance of hunters becoming a part of nature. Hunters learned that getting in synch with the rhythm of the forest and its creatures is vital and probably the most enjoyable aspect of hunting.

Attending an Optional Scouting Field Trip:
After attending the reading the hunting workbook, attending the hunting workshop and the receiving a hunt unit briefing session, Lou and Steve were ready to successfully scout, locate and fill a hunting tag on their own. One addition that the Arizona Scouting Adventures offers hunters that attend one of their hunt unit briefings is an optional free scouting trip and campout in their hunt unit any time prior to their hunt.

The free campout and scouting trip allows hunters to practice their skills in real world environment, with the Arizona Scouting Adventures staff on hand to answer any questions about what they saw, heard or experienced during their scouting field trip of hunt unit 5B North.

Why Hunters Should Attend the Optional Scouting Field Trip and Campout:
Lou and Steve decided to attend the scouting field trip because they wanted hands-on instruction to help them scout and implement the knowledge and hunting plans they had created in class.

Lou and Steve drew a cow elk tag in 5B north. To prepare for their scouting trip, they took the hunting workshop and spent a lot of time diagramming several 7.5 minute quadrangle topographic maps, which included: Mormon Lake, Kinnikinick Lake, Elliot Canyon, Ashurst Lake and several others. They successfully identified numerous feeding, staging, watering and bedding areas then downloaded the waypoints in their GPS units. They pared down the potential scouting locations by using satellite imaging programs to conduct virtual scouting trips of all the potential areas and pick the ones that looked the best. They were excited to meet with Arizona Scouting Adventures and confirm the best areas to hunt during their 5B North Unit Briefing.

Brief Description of the 5B North Hunt Briefing by Arizona Scouting Adventures Staff:
We met with Dan Caputo, a seasoned scout and hunter, who is an expert on Hunt Unit 5B north. The Arizona Hunt Unit 5B North Hunt Unit Briefing Session covered a lot of important elk hunting topics.

Dan covered these important hunting topics in-depth:

• A great biography on elk and their habitat
  
• Prevailing winds in the area and recent weather patterns
  
• Known watering holes that served as social gathering spots
  
• Known staging areas close to watering holes where animals gather before dark
  
• Known protected feeding areas elk feed during the day
  
• Known bedding areas
  
• Known travel times and travel routes between these areas
  

After Dan’s briefing session, he sat down with Lou and Steve and examined their planned scouting missions and provided some great feedback on why two of the areas would be great and why a third would probably be bad because of hunting pressure. He also recommended two other good areas that were off the beaten path that he said would be better places to hunt if the hunting pressure became too heavy.

Brief Schedule of Events on the Free Campout and Scouting Trip to Hunt Unit 5B North:

• For the morning scouting trip, we picked a mesa known to contain heavy concentrations of elk. According to Dan the elk like this particular area because of prevailing winds the blew in the right direction for them to walk into the wind as they approached their evening staging areas and water holes as well as the trip back to their beds in the morning.
  
• For the mid-day scouting trip, we focused on some bedding areas located on steep hillsides that were very close to some protected feeding areas that could be used during the day and a remote stock tank that was not listed on any map.
  
• For the afternoon scouting trip we focused on an elevated bench that overlooked a very large watering hole known to be social gathering spot for elk in the evenings. We also planned a travel route that would allow us to move undetected from the staging area to the water hole so that we could see the elk herds come into to get a drink.
  

Let the Scouting Trip Begin:
We set our alarm clocks for 4:30 am so that we could get a bite to eat and drink a couple of cups of coffee before the day began. The stars were bright and the elk were bugling all around us.


We drove to the mesa and made our way to the top of the mesa in total darkness using the GPS waypoints. Even though it was dark, we found several game trails and followed them to a fence crossing.




Looking at the direction of the trails and using the waypoints we had marked for the bedding areas, we decided to follow the game trail to the bedding areas we had marked earlier with GPS waypoints. We headed to a steep spot overlooking a hillside just above the bedding areas where there were several wide benches and protected feeding areas. Due to the morning thermals we knew that we would be undetectable. We sat there and waited for the sun to come up.

We could hear the elk bugling and coming towards us from the south. We had the morning thermals working for us, but we also had the wind blowing in our favor from the east. It took about 30 minutes for the herd to reach us and they finally walked down a game trail that was about 100 yards below us.





Lou and Steve’s eyes were wide open and they had smiles on their faces. They knew that if it had been opening day, they both would have filled their tags.

On the way back to the truck, we crisscrossed the top of the mesa looking for more game trails and hilltop funnels dropping off the side of the mesas. We discovered several trails and Dan showed us how to tell the age of the deer and elk tracks on the game trail.




He also pointed out that one trail only had a few elk tracks going one way, while another trail had hundreds of tracks going both ways.


He explained the difference between the trails was that one was only used randomly one time, probably elk being pushed by hunters, and the other was a main travel trail that the elk herd uses every day to travel between their bedding area and food/water.

Dan also pointed out several turkey roosts and some turkey scratches where we found lots of feathers. As we were walking around picking up feathers, we were startled when we saw a young mountain lion crouched under a nearby bush. The lion was too quick for us to get a picture, but it was another good sign that there were lots of animals (food) in this area.





Dan then led us down the hill to the truck. Next we decided to check out three tanks that we had located and marked using the stock tank database GPS coordinates, and two additional tanks that were not on the map that Lou and Steve had found using the free satellite virtual scouting program.

The first tank had very little sign. The second tank had elk and deer tracks, a small and large bear, and really some really big mountain lion tracks.





The other tanks had tracks, but one in particular had more than the rest. This picture shows Dan showing them to tell how big the animals are by the size and depth of their tracks.


Using the GPS unit, we could tell that we were about a quarter mile downhill from where the elk were bedded down. The GPS made it easy tell the exact distance we were from the bedding areas, but we knew where they were because we could still hear the bull bugling quietly to keep his harem nearby.

Everyone agree that this would be a great spot to wait for some thirsty elk to get a drink during the middle of the day. It was secluded, unmarked and very hard to get to. Another bonus was the green grass growing on the earth berm dam and around the edge of the water. Most of it has been grazed and there was lots of fresh sign so we knew they were using the area.

We headed back to camp and fixed some lunch went on to scouting spot number two. The second spot we picked to scout was a large mid-mesa bench, which was more of a huge ledge or step. On the satellite map you could see a huge, protected clearing in the middle of the forest on this step. Judging from the satellite images, the clearing looked like a small pasture and was located within a quarter mile of another big stock tank. It looked like a great spot to hold elk bedded down during the day.

As we were driving to spot #2, Dan warned us that the road we had selected to get there was very rough and showed us a quicker, smoother shortcut. While traveling along the short cut we spooked two small groups of cows, but no bulls. Both sets had cows and calves in it.


When we are arrived at our parking waypoint, we were pleased to see lots of green grass and lots of wildflowers. Dan said the flowers and green grass were signs of recent monsoon rains and that the nearby stock tank would probably be full. As we approached the clearing, we heard two bulls bugling.





One bull had about 10 cows and the other one had none. We couldn’t see the herd bull, but the satellite bull was a nice 5x5. Once again, Lou and Steve were pleased to see so many elk and noted that this area would be a good mid-day spot to hunt. We watched the herd for about two hours and then decided to move to our third scouting spot.



Our third spot was chosen because it contained a protected area of grass with several fingers that doglegged back into the forest. It was located on a hillside bench about 500 yards from the tank we wanted to scout. The bench was about 150 higher than the rest of the meadow and you could see all the way to the tree line circling the tank. Dan said this was a very good spot and that it holds elk every year. He said the main reason that is was good hunting spot was because it was a perennial water hole where elk come, not only to drink, but to socialize and that they gather here almost every evening.

We followed our GPS waypoints to our scouting spot, which was slightly more elevated than the bench we wanted to watch. On left side was a draw that hooked down into the tree line surrounding the tank. As we were hiking to the spot, we could hear the crashing of antlers and bugling.

Lou and Steve were stoked about see their first rutting tournament. In the distance a storm was brewing and the wind was directly in our face. The wind was great because it was blowing our scent away from the herd and covering our crunching footsteps.

We sat and watched through binoculars as the elk battled and the cows ran from the chasing satellite bulls. They were a long ways off but we did get a couple of good pictures. As the sun set and the daylight turned to purple twilight, we made our way down to the water hole and waited.

The elk were being very cautious and didn’t seem to want to come in, but then suddenly one of the satellite bulls pranced in and continued his bugling. He had a small 4x4 rack. Shortly thereafter, the cows figured it was safe and they came in too. You can hear the bull bugling in the video. He is the brown spec on the right and the cows are the brown dots on the left. After dark we made our escape and headed back to camp.






Scouting Trip Success Based on the Arizona Scouting Adventure’s Knowledge of Hunt Unit 5B North:
We saw a lot of elk on this scouting trip. Instead of driving the roads like most hunters, however, we used our scouting plans to walk directly to spots that we were confident that would hold elk. Having a seasoned hunter and wildlife scout with us was also extremely beneficial. We might have found the same amount of elk without him, based on our scouting plans, but it sure was nice to have an expert with us that knew the hunt unit like the back of his hand and could lead us straight to areas known to have large concentrations of elk present every year.


Finalizing the Three Best Elk Hunting Spots in Unit 5B North:
When we got back to camp, Dan took the time to recommend the three best spots the Lou and Steve should hunt to kill their cow elk on opening morning. Dan reminded them about the prevailing winds in the area, drew an X on the map on where he thought they would should try an intercept elk on their way to bed in the mornings, circled areas on the hill where they were most likely to bed down during the day, double checked the waypoints for the staging areas and made sure they marked the spot where we were sitting as we watched the herd come into water just before dark.



When you are in the field scouting, it is hard to communicate everything that was pointed out or learned. The most beneficial thing for hunters to do is to make a scouting plan, actively scout a hunt unit 2 or 3 weeks before the season and if you get the chance, make plans to scout the area with a seasoned scout that has been scouting and hunting your hunt unit for years.

Good Return on Investment for the Right Kind of Hunting Knowledge:
Compared to the price you would pay for a hunting guide, it is much more cost effective to take a hunting workshop and attend a wildlife briefing. Instead of someone showing you a bull or cow standing in a field and you shooting it, you will actually learn how to hunt.

What Lou, Steve and every other hunter that attends our classes, workshops and wildlife briefings learns is that planning out a hunting trip on paper, then executing it in the field is a lot of fun. Click on this video to hear their own words about what they thought about the scouting trip.





You learn the technical skills of hunting, which can be applied to any hunt unit in Arizona. You make good hunting friends. You get to tell hunting stories over a bonfire.

And, most importantly, you get the thrill of hearing, smelling and seeing wildlife in their natural environment and knowing that on opening morning you will be sitting in a spot that should be very, very successful.

Click here to see the hunting workbook and hunt unit briefing session that took place before the scouting trip.