Bivouac Camping: How close is too close?

[Twojump]

I slept on a ridge that runs east to west and the elk stayed on the north side in the bottom of the draw...about 500 yards.. nice and easy to roll out of the sack and get on them

[*******]

I find it is great to stay up the night when the elk aren't that active in the day, but are rutting hard at night. I have had some wild nights making bulls go nuts in the dark. Defiantly worth doing once just to experience the bulls raging at night with reckless abandon.

[coyhuntermn]

I think one of the things that needs to be considered is moon light. I would avoid ridges because these are travel cooridors at night. If moon light is poor I think they have trouble moving in the dark timber. Consider other elk on the move not the ones you are after. We use to have a spike camp on a ridge that we thought was off far enough from the elk we were targeting which was true. What we learned over the years was several times we woke up hearing elk move through but they were new elk moving in. The next morning we would see a different bull or group of cows that were not there the previous day. Think of it those terms if you stampede those elk will they also take the elk you are targeting off the mountain also. I would choose down wind but in heavy timber at least 200 yards into it.