Photos And Thoughts From The 2016 Elk Rut

In an unprecedented move since this blog was founded in 2007, I have gone a month without posting. This is partly because I had difficulty getting internet access for with my laptop while I was in Pennsylvania Elk Country for the last two weeks of September and I did not want to try posting with a smart phone.  Also I find it harder and harder to write a post as time passes.  It is relatively simple to post a few photos, but I always like to do a bit more. To make a long story short, I found I had a lot of other things that needed done when I returned from elk country and it was easier to devote my time to that and put posting on the back burner until now. For today's post, I will share a few images from September's trip and refer you to a post by Bill Taylor on his "Down The Fall Road" Blog that resonates with me in many ways. It is titled, "The Elk Rut, Photography, & Thoughts".

A major point he makes is how each year seems to have a set of circumstances that make it stand out from years past, For me this was how elk activity was not centered nearly so much around the Dewey Rd area as it usually was in the past several years, but perhaps this was because I avoided this area as much as possible.  With that being said, I did have a few good experiences there and the first was  late in the afternoon on the first day of my trip. I arrived so late that there was not time for more than a drive around the Benezette/ Winslow Hill area and I found two bulls chasing a herd of cows over an area ranging from the food plot by the cabin on the hill to the Gilbert meadows and beyond. The first was one that many refer to as the U bull and he gave a dramatic pose when he paused and looked over his shoulder at a rapidly approaching 6x7 that was contending with him for control of the harem. It was good to be joined by fellow photographers, Jim (Muck) McClelland and then later by Tom  Dorsey and his wife Jeanne.

The U Bull Looks Back At Rapidly Approaching 6x7

6x7 Arrives

6x7 Pauses

Another bull that was photographed by many is a fine 7x7 that  frequented the river bottoms.  This brings us to another point that Bill Taylor made, which is that with so many photographing the same animals in the same set of circumstances that it is very hard to get a photo that is truly unique.  I usually try to capture them either in a dramatic pose in a good natural setting or capture them doing something unusual, but of course most every one else is trying to do the same thing.  In the first photo below I tried to capture him at the moment that he erupted from the woods in pursuit of a cow and then I got him as he came almost sliding to a stop.

7x7 Emerges From Woods In Pursuit Of Cow

Sliding To A Stop

Another dramatic opportunity was when he paused from tearing up the ground with his antlers and bugled.

Bugling With Grass In Antlers

I would have liked to get photos and video of the elk in the river, but I did not spend enough time in that spot this year to be there when this happened. Whether one succeeds in capturing a unique photo or not, it is good to see the increase in serious elk photographers as it will hopefully help insure the future for wildlife photography on public lands in Pennsylvania if this user group becomes large enough to achieve recognition as stake-holders in or public lands and the wildlife which inhabits it.

Like Bill, I would usually rather be somewhere else than the areas where a lot of other photographers are congregated in hopes of getting something different (although I really enjoy the bull sessions),  but many if not most times trips to remote areas result in very little or no elk sightings or filming opportunities.

Remote Food Plot In Clearfield County-No Elk Were Seen

I had a lot of different spots that I wanted to check out this year and I did get to a few of them, but in those cases I was not successful in getting video or stills of bull elk although these excursions were successful from the standpoint of seeing different country.

Quehanna Wild Area

When one is successful in places like this, it does seem like you have accomplished more and it is truly an experience to treasure.  The photo below  illustrates this and it is also a warning to always be prepared.  I took my brother Coy to see a remote meadow late one morning.  It was so late that I saw little reason to bother with a big lens.  As the 70-200 was mounted on my 5D MK III, I just carried it and the 24-105mm.  Needless to say this was the time that I would see a large coyote close enough for an exceptional shot with a larger lens, but there it was and I had to make the best of the situation. This is cropped severely and I do mean severely. An image from the MK III is 22.1 megapixels when opened in ACR (Adobe Camera Raw), but in this case I cropped it to 3.6 megapixels at 300 d.p.i.  which is suitable for the internet and actually good enough to print a modestly large print. Actually I could probably have gotten away with 2 megapixels or less, but this was a good compromise.

Quehanna Coyote

 The bottom line though is  that with a limited amount of time to spend and more problems from getting older, it gets easier and easier to hang around the tourist areas and alternate between watching what is going on and then pitching in and doing some serious photography when the opportunity presents itself. This is what I was doing on the last Thursday evening of my trip when I saw a large bull bedded in the field beside the Woodring House. In time he stood up and I took this photo and also the one featured at the beginning of the post.

Bugling

Before someone gets their "shorts in a wad" about how close this photo is, I will point out that this was taken at an entirely safe and respectful distance with a 600mm lens and the photo was cropped substantially also.

Originally published at Pennsylvania Wildlife Photographer by Willard Hill.