Are there any elk in colorado?

[stumblinhorse]

Don’t play with them too long… I did that last year and left without any meat haha but it is early, good stuff man! They talking a little yet?

Not a peep out there. So quiet I could hear squirrel farts today brother. 28° this morning tho. So hopefully soon.

 

[tkhuntsman]

Nope woofs et em all.
On a serious note switch units and change your strategy. Don't overlook micro habitats in heavily hunted drainages and make it a point to check out the places that no sane individual would purposely hunt. Those elk you saw on camera moved most elk don't rut where they summer and they are good at dodging people when the pressure is high. Time and effort only equal success when you are where the elk are and they are where you find them there are no secrets in this game.

 

[PWahlquist]

Very few where my friend is. Before daylight

 

[surich725]

You should provide some better details about what a typical day looks like for you. Be specific with time, activity, habitat and elevations you're in. Then when your typical day ends, what do you do the next day? And the day after that?

Ok back at camp, we headed out in the truck at around 4 for about 30 min to a trailhead some one messaged me about on the th by 530 ish and bombed back2.5 to 3 miles to get to elevation. Started at 8500 ft and off the trail at around 9000 ft, we skirted the south facing slope into the bottom of the first drainage as thermals were still pulling downhill. Silently slipped up into drainage and looked for sign and listened for animals. Started working north to the next drainage and saw little sign but was a couple days old. About this time the thermals were getting ready to switch so moved up the north face of that drainage to the south side and waited out the thermals. Had a snack then went back to the north side slope maybe and 1/8 of the way down from the summit and cold called as we moved west on the slope to the top and wrapped around to the south ridge. Went over the south ridge watching the wind. We then did the same thing except worked the ridge west to east. Cold calling and looking for sign. We worked that ridge into a blow down mess and worked our way back to the truck. Back around 9 pm to camp eat dinner and plan out tomorrow. Most of the terrain was heavy wooded lodge poles on the ridges and in the drainage was nice grass and water. Glassing this area isn't really possible as the trees are so dense there are only a few places you can see out. Most of the day was spent at the 10k contour line.

What are you actually doing? I know a guy who hunted the same area for 25 years. Killed a bull one time and has been stuck doing the same thing. Rarely sees elk but hunts the same spot for two weeks every year. The area has some good feed and water. Plenty of fresh elk sign.

After talking to him for awhile I found out he was consistently hunting those low areas with water and feed. Turns out the elk were in there. At night. I went to the top and got into elk immediately.

So my question to OP is what exactly are you doing that is resulting in such struggles? Statistically speaking there must be a handful of people as unsuccessful as you but woof.

You’re either not hunting the elk where they are at that moment or spooking them before you see them.

The hard part is finding sign of elk and then finding the elk. If we can find them we have been pretty successful on having shot opportunities. But finding them for me is impossible.

You don't have to know where they are, but you do need to know what the wind is doing when you're planning your route. I can promise you this, if elk are in an area & the wind is going from you to them, they will not be there a few seconds later & you'll never know they were even there to start with.
Watch some videos on YouTube & learn the concept of thermals.
Wind isn't as critical when rifle hunting because you can still get a shot if you spot them 400 yards away, but for archery it's the single most important thing

I understand thermals and prevailing winds, but do you just assume that you are going to blow some of the elk out ro get the wind right? Take where we are hunting now most everywhere we have to loose elevation to get off the road, in the mornings there is nothing I can do to prevent the wind going down into the drainage. Do you just pick one to go down and then stay at contour line to the next drainage? I dont know how to hunt that or what to do.