I was browsing back through some of my old photos and found this cute little guy staring back at me. This is actually one of the very first elk I photographed. This picture was taken roughly 7 years ago while I was out hiking near our camp.
I remember being amazed that this elk, by all accounts, was still a baby; however, he was larger than most of the mature whitetail that I was used to seeing. I also remember wondering how those skinny, knobby kneed legs can hold up those massive animals.
Are elk native to Pa? Well, the answer to this is yes, but. Yes, elk did inhabit Pennsylvania and actually thrived here. But the elk that live here now are not descended from the formerly native elk.
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I found another picture of this huge bull elk that gave a closer look at his awesome rack. Not only is it fantastic because of its size, but the remnants of its velvet just hanging there like it was melting off was really neat as well.
As you can see in the background this bull had captured more than our attention. These folks were part of a long string of people lined up on route 555 to take a look at him. You can completely understand why, but we have to mention that stopping in the road like this is both dangerous to you in the car and rather annoying to those behind you who are trying to get somewhere.
So, when you see an animal like this that you just have to see, find a safe and legal place to pull over to view it. When there is nowhere to pull over and you want to see it, you may just have to be satisfied with seeing it in passing. Stopping or even drastically slowing in a situation where the other drivers are likely to be distracted as well can be a recipe for a good ole fashioned fender bender.
Since elk have to constantly eat to keep up their weight most of the photos you get of them will be of them out having a snack. Here are a couple of the pics I have taken of them out grabbing a snack.
One of the best times to catch a glimpse of a big Pa bull elk is when they are out just before dusk grazing in the fields. This fella was standing a few feet from a local camp munching away.
Another great way to catch up to big elk is to learn their travel patterns and favorite snacking spots. You can almost set your watch by this guy as he travels from one grazing area to the next. If you look carefully behind him you can see the fence set up to keep the elk out, but trust me it does not work on this guy.
This bull (#57) is another example of a creature of habit. I see this bull on a regular basis, however he tends to travel quite a bit. It appears to me that he has a route he travels with consistency, but instead of it being a daily route it seems that he has a large territory he travels over the course of several days. About every 3 days or so he makes it back to this spot, but the other times I seem him he is up to 2 miles away from here.
This is one of my favorite photos of an elk eating. This guy stopped chomping long enough to check me out and had a leaf hanging out the side of his mouth. I took several photos of this bull while he was eating and several of them turned out like this with food hanging out.
Tip For Locating Pa Elk:
A rule of thumb to follow when looking for elk grazing is to check early in the A.M. when they are just waking up and are hungry, just before dusk when they are getting a pre sleep snack and just before a weather front passes through when they are trying to get a bite before a storm.
Let me just say that when you are out looking for elk you just never know what else you might see. On one of our trips to check out our favorite elk viewing areas we spotted these two beauties traveling through some local camps looking for snacks.
We first spotted this cub walking across the road in front of us. It was a real treat because we very rarely get to see cubs out and about like this. In fact this was the only cub we saw all year.
Knowing that a young cub like the one above would not be far from it’s mom we took a moment to scope out the wood-line and sure enough there was momma. Unfortunately, my camera went wacko on me and most of my shots came out blurry. She was a real beauty and we got to watch her for several minutes walk from camp to camp on what looked like her regular route.
A Word To The Wise:
Although we crossed paths with these two while in the safety of our vehicle, it brings to mind a great piece of advice passed down to me from my father. “Never assume that you are going to find only what you are looking for when you are out in nature.”
Remember that when you are out and about scoping out the beauty of nature, nature could be there scoping you out as well. Whenever we enter the woods, no matter what the purpose, we need to do so with our eyes, ears and minds open to the fact that we are not alone there.
Have fun, stay safe and I hope you have a great time on your next trip into the woods.
Quick elk fact – A mature bull elk can easily top out in the 1,000 lb range with averages being somewhere between 600 and 850 lbs. Cows on the other hand range between 500 -600 lbs.
Compared to a whitetail deer elk are easily 5 – 7 times heavier than their cousins.
To maintain their robust weight elk need to eat around 3 lbs of food each day per 100 lbs of body weight. Thats between 15 and 30 lbs every 24 hrs depending on their weight. WOW! That’s a lot of chewing.
Owning a camp in the heart of PA’s Elk Country is truly a blessing because of days like this one. This picture was taken a while back, but it was such a great day because the Elk were moving all day. This guy was browsing his way down towards his bedding area near the river and took time to stand in our yard and our neighbor’s.
This particular day was one in which we never had to travel to see the elk, they came to us. If memory serves me correctly we saw about 20 different elk that day ranging from large 6 X 6′s to yearlings still chasing mom.
These two young bulls were testing out their sparring abilities on each other just outside our camp. This was just a couple of pals rattling their antlers together and not a full on battle, but it was still a lot of fun to see. The one on the right had a much larger rack than the other but that did not stop the little guy from giving the big one a few good pokes here and there.
They sparred for about 10 minutes and then walked about 100 yards and bedded down. I saw them several times over the course of the next few days and they were never more than a few yards from each other.
This big boy was out for a stroll at the same time I was and neither of us realized the other was there until we were within about 20 yards of each other. He browsed around for a while keeping tabs on where I was, but since the Elk here are so used to people he never ran off. I actually moved on well before he did.
This is another nice young bull that I came across on one of my walks. He seemed to be very fascinated with me and was way more wary of me than the bull above. He kept me down wind as I walked and seemed to be keeping me in a clear line of sight as I moved through the woods. I got several really nice pictures of this one on this day as well as a couple cows he seemed to be tending.
My first encounter with a PA Elk came back in October of 1998 when I made my first trip from Va (where I lived at the time) up to my wife’s (then fiance’) camp in Benezette. She had told me all these wonderful stories about the elk there and how they seem to be everywhere around her camp. I was fascinated by her tales since my only elk experience to that time was via books, tv and magazines and the closest thing to an elk I encountered in Va was a whitetail.
Due to our work schedule we were due to arrive at camp around 1:30 a.m., thus meaning we would be arriving while it was dark and foggy. Having lived in rural areas my whole life I knew this was a bad combination because the poor visibility combined with the fact that animals seem to love to be standing in the middle of the road at this hour could make things dangerous.
Anyway, we arrived in Benezette on schedule and my wife was the one driving at the time since I had been behind the wheel for about 4 hrs at that time and was getting tired. We were driving along and she was telling me about how you had to be really careful here and there at night because of the prevalence of elk. She had just finished talking about a certain area just a head of us, when we both spotted long skinny legs in the mist ahead of us.
She slammed on the breaks, and thankfully was not going fast anyway, and we came to a rest about 10 feet from a huge 6 X 6 bull who was just standing there in the middle of the road. I was blown away at how big he was and how small I felt. At the time we were in a Honda Accord that was fairly low to the ground, and there I was staring up at this big guy. Her first comment, following her half scared shriek, was “I told you that you had to be careful here!”.
To say I was awed by the experience was an understatement. He was so big, his antlers looked like a rocking chair on his head and there he was just standing there seemingly without a care in the world. The following days were spent with me falling in love with these amazing animals and taking every opportunity I could to catch a glimpse of them.
From my first encounter with those skinny little legs in the mist then til now I am still like a small excited child each time I see one. I pray they continue to prosper in PA and that they keep off the roads when I am driving.
My first elk experience looked a lot like this but at night and we were moving. 
