CO Early Rifle

[jolemons]

Went on a early rifle with my brother last year around Sept. 15. We got a decent buck after a lot of hard hunting. However, we didn't see much in numerous basins. I'm wondering what everyone's experience with CO early rifle has been. I've got alot of points that I'd like to cash in, but don't want a similar experience. I'm thinking we were too late and the deer had migrated into the timber out of the high country. Thoughts?

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[Ridge Reaper]

It’s what I did with my pts last year. The big bucks were already timbered up on the opener, but they weren’t tough to find with some diligent glassing. It’s a rare opportunity to hunt high country mule deer with a rifle that early! Take advantage of it.

 

[robie]

I did it 2 years ago. Scouted and found some studs but ended up with snow on us during the hunt and couldn't turn them back up. I wish it opened a week earlier and I would try it again.

 

[cryptid_mountain]

I agree most of the bucks will be timbered up but if you have the time to find a big buck early. They will be there somewhere

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[Cliff Gray]

If you do it, hunt them as early as possible. They almost immediately hit timber once they peel velvet (around the 7th-10th in central CO).

OTC and heavily hunted draw archery elk areas can be devastating. Archery elk hunters presence alone can drive velvet bucks to timber, particularly if the deer are heavily hunted during the other seasons.

 

[Joe Schmo]

This is a type of hunt that I’m VERY interested in...big bucks, unique experience, VELVET BIG BUCKS, beautiful country, who could ask for anything more. But I’ve heard that in many places bucks carry velvet until October?? And this is coming from a resident who’s archery hunted for years.

 

[Carbonaero]

My experience is that they don't head for timber permanently until after archery. They may get pushed into timber when raining or snowing (or perceived predation pressure), but if there is still food up there they will be back. (Remember the dark, impenetrable "Timber" to us, is simply the patch of sub-alpine fir at the toe of the basin to a deer. A rain tarp for the wildlife, if you will, just thirty seconds to a minute away).

One example: last fall during muzzleloader (which, I believe is typically the week after the above timberline hunts) I had two different bigger bucks I had been hunting all week. The Thursday before last weekend a front moved in with high winds at elevation and a couple inches of snow. I was concerned the deer would take that as time to sink into the trees. Friday, at 12,500 and daybreak I found them all again. They hadn't left the higher basins. Too many wildflowers to eat under that temporary snow cover with high atmospheric pressure building. If that snow had come a couple weeks later and threatened to stay until June, the deer would be forced to head down. They need to eat.

It has been my experience they go grey about the time they harden up. Sometime in the last two weeks of September. It seems that this is coincides with the first hard frost.

As far as the early rifle seasons, I have hunted them once. Got a decent deer, but there is so much attention to those hunts in Colorado. I think they get shot out to a certain degree. The unit I hunted had something like 20 tags. If a guy has to wait a decade for a tag he will try to make the best of it. From my perspective that is a lot of pressure for the bigger bucks. I think in allot of these units the expectations of a monster are a bit overblown.

Since that rifle hunt I have been chasing muley's in under applied units, with a bow or muzzleloader. I have had better success in finding older deer in units that don't allow rifle hunting until October. The deer fly under the radar in the units without so called "coveted" tags. I covet any colorado deer tag I get, whether someone else wants it or not.

Hope this helps.