Colorado high country

Joined
Feb 17, 2020
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Looking to do a high country archery hunt in Colorado either 2020 or 2021, willing to wait a year if a PP will open substantially better units. I’m willing to hike where most aren’t and will be able to scout a week prior. Looking for something in the 170-180+ class, not looking for specifics obviously but a unit recommendation would extremely helpful.
 
Go through the draw stats on cpw or subscribe to toprut, gohunt, epic outdoors or something like it.
 
I wish I had a dollar for every post like this.

Asking where you can go kill a 170-180 inch buck is quite the request. It’s like asking how to make a million dollars. Everyone who knows isn’t going to tell you Via the Internet.
No kidding, its getting ridiculous to where i cant even look in the animal forums anymore cause all thats there is I’m headed to ID or CO what general units can i hunt to kill big mature bucks or bulls.

BTW a unit suggestion is pretty specific

Lots of tools out there. Eastmans, Gohunt, huntin fool

Good luck, I would start by looking in the mountains.
 
I’m gonna go out on a limb and help you out. I’m willing to bet that every unit in Colorado that has “high country” and takes more than zero preference points to draw has at a minimum of one 180” buck in it. All you gotta do is find him and kill him.
 
Yea these posts are getting old.

Every post says “willing to hike where most won’t”

Well then you haven’t been to the CO mountains lately not many places where you won’t find people. Until those big Grizzlies move In Which I am a fan of, it will help keep the mountains less crowded.
 
You can’t outhike people in Colorado. The state is crawling with people whose main hobby is walking around in the mountains. Tens of thousands of people who call themselves “hikers”. Sticker on their car with saying like “The mountains are calling and I must go”. You’re gonna have to put in more effort than hoping to get clues about secret spots on the internet. Maybe you can find a little 180 dink in MT or in WY to shorten the drive.
 
The thing I’ve noticed about high country mulies is that, for the most part, you have a tiny window in the morning hours and I’m really unsure how your capitalize off such a short window especially with a bow. In the evening, they tend to stick to the trees until dark and are not very glassable from any long distance. I’ve spent a lot of time in the high country in the summer months and know some spots that seem to be deer magnets for some reason or another, but I’m not sure how I would go about trying to hunt one. While they aren’t where the people are, they are not reliably where the people are not. I’ve hit and glasses some remote spots with no people for miles and not seen the first mulie. Also, they sometimes bed on top of 13ers in the Scree fields. Maybe it gets them out of the mosquitos? I’m not sure.

However hard you think this is going to be, it’s going to be way harder. I’m going to guess success rate is low single digits. This is as close as I’ve ever encountered a high country bachelor group.

4a80eca5ee52bc4f975bfe87668a02d3.jpg
 
Spot on. Other similar bumper stickers to watch out for are "Mountains, Please." Or "Explore More, Worry Less".

You'll never go deeper or outlast these people and their untrained high energy dogs.
I disagree! From my experience, most of the people I see with those stupid stickers on their car tend to be the kind of folks that hang out at craft breweries, their favorite dispensary, or REI.

Even if those people do make it to a trailhead, you won’t find them too far from the parking lot because they find it more fun to hang out in the parking lot and chug PBRs.

I do agree with you about their dogs, though. And, their dogs are almost always named after some regional place or their favorite brand (Aspen, Sage, Oakley, etc.).
 
Pry have better luck asking someone to bed their woman or you could spend some time before hunting season this year and next to find your area/deer you want to hunt and then have at it.
 
Best part is that at some point we have all wanted to ask for help. But by this day and age there is so much data across the WWW that you should be able to get a starting point just by some general searches.

I have went back and edited several of my posts from years ago that today, I feel gave our too much information...
 
The thing I’ve noticed about high country mulies is that, for the most part, you have a tiny window in the morning hours and I’m really unsure how your capitalize off such a short window especially with a bow. In the evening, they tend to stick to the trees until dark and are not very glassable from any long distance. I’ve spent a lot of time in the high country in the summer months and know some spots that seem to be deer magnets for some reason or another, but I’m not sure how I would go about trying to hunt one. While they aren’t where the people are, they are not reliably where the people are not. I’ve hit and glasses some remote spots with no people for miles and not seen the first mulie. Also, they sometimes bed on top of 13ers in the Scree fields. Maybe it gets them out of the mosquitos? I’m not sure.

However hard you think this is going to be, it’s going to be way harder. I’m going to guess success rate is low single digits. This is as close as I’ve ever encountered a high country bachelor group.

4a80eca5ee52bc4f975bfe87668a02d3.jpg
You have longer then a small window in the morning
 
You can’t outhike people in Colorado. The state is crawling with people whose main hobby is walking around in the mountains. Tens of thousands of people who call themselves “hikers”. Sticker on their car with saying like “The mountains are calling and I must go”. You’re gonna have to put in more effort than hoping to get clues about secret spots on the internet. Maybe you can find a little 180 dink in MT or in WY to shorten the drive.
Right on! The Colorado folks are some hiking machines. Every year I’ve hunted out there I’m amazed at some hiker i come across.
 
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