Colorado Rut Timing This year?

[rockymountainjk]

Elk fanatics, I’m curious what everyone’s experience was this September in CO as far as peak rut. I hunted units 36 and 371 1st, 2nd, and last week of the season. I heard more bugles the first week then the second, and more the second than currently this week, but I’m still finding mature bulls with small herds. What was your experience this month? Thx!

 

[Colorado Cowboy]

Depends on what part of the state you are in. The northern part will usually start a little before the southern area because of the weather. This year the deer rut was so late that we are seeing 2 batches of fawns. I saw triplets yesterday that were just getting rid of their spots!

 

[bbkick25]

Quietest last week of September I have experienced in the past several years. I'm still wondering if it was just timing or if there was more pressure early in the month before we got there. Same experience from 4 other groups I know that were there and usually have success. SW Colorado

 

[Phaseolus]

I was in Colorado Unit 61 a couple of days ago hunting grouse and fall turkey. They were screaming all day.

 

[Poser]

I've been out bear hunting quite a bit in SW Colorado. Lots and lots of elk bugling before first light over the last 2 weeks. Starts dying down as sunrise approaches and some vocal activity up until around 8-9 AM, but, I often practice some elk calling without a bugle around mid morning while bear hunting and I've called in bulls every day I've been out. Herds are still fragmented into smaller groups -no consolidation and most of the bugling coming from younger bulls. Cows are still largely disinterested.

All seems pretty normal for this time of year in this area.

 

[patagonialuke]

This season was far quieter than the last where I am in western CO. My notes from 20 days on the ground:

First Week: Heard 3 bulls bugle on their own on 3 separate mornings; each was coralling their cows like it was the peak rut. But we never got a bull to respond to our calls with a bugle.

Second Week: Got 1 bull to respond to an early locator bugle. Heard 1 other bull bugle while moving his cows around dusk, and 1 mature bull growling but not bugling. Very quiet.

Third Week: 1 mature bull grunting and glunking but never fully bugled. No bulls audibly responded to calls. I thought this would be the week they'd turn on, but it was the opposite.

Fourth Week: Ramped up a bit. Have heard 4 bulls bugling at their cows early / late in the day. Still no bulls responding to our bugles.

Will be back out today and tomorrow, but this season has been tough due to lack of vocalizations in a unit that isn't conducive to spot-and-stalk approaches. We've also only run into a single bull that didn't already have cows with him; even spikes and the tiniest legal bulls I've seen have had harems the whole month.

All that said, a friend hunting a unit ~50 miles south of me said they've been calling in bulls almost every day they've been out.

 

[Gerbdog]

Had elk come in quiet all the way to the end of september - answered my location bugles but then would sneak in, up til this very last weekend is my experience. Not bugling there heads off.

I also found bachelor groups still this last weekend of September, strange to me, but my experience is only one dudes experience over some years. These were bachelor groups containing what would definitely be herd bulls and shoulda been battling eachother for supremacy. I saw nor heard any cows and saw nor heard and bulls with cows.

 

[Chris in TN]

I have a theory - because biology will 100% bear this out with whitetails and I suspect that elk are the same - that the rut pretty much always happens at the same time/date every year in any given location, but weather and pressure have an influence on individual animals and sometimes make small changes to the rates at which cows are successfully bred the first time, causing a variable degree of need for a second or third rut later. But most of us only see an incredibly narrow window into the 'rut' every year, whether it's elk or deer or any other ungulate. Maybe elk are pressured into being quiet, maybe they get pushed around by hunters or wolves and fewer cows get pregnant the first go-round but overall I'd be willing to bet that if you looked at spring calf drop dates and counted back the gestation period to first-round conception dates, you'd be within a day or three of the same date as previous years at any given location every time.

I could be wrong.

I'll just say that every year here in the east people will breathlessly ask each other if the rut has started yet, and it always, without fail, for all of my lifetime, always has done so at the same dates, within a day or three.

 

[Poser]

I have a theory - because biology will 100% bear this out with whitetails and I suspect that elk are the same - that the rut pretty much always happens at the same time/date every year in any given location, but weather and pressure have an influence on individual animals and sometimes make small changes to the rates at which cows are successfully bred the first time, causing a variable degree of need for a second or third rut later. But most of us only see an incredibly narrow window into the 'rut' every year, whether it's elk or deer or any other ungulate. Maybe elk are pressured into being quiet, maybe they get pushed around by hunters or wolves and fewer cows get pregnant the first go-round but overall I'd be willing to bet that if you looked at spring calf drop dates and counted back the gestation period to first-round conception dates, you'd be within a day or three of the same date as previous years at any given location every time.

I could be wrong.

I'll just say that every year here in the east people will breathlessly ask each other if the rut has started yet, and it always, without fail, for all of my lifetime, always has done so at the same dates, within a day or three.

This is correct. The breeding cycles were established during the last ice age when calves had to be born within a narrow 2 week window or their chances of survivability dropped to zero. ~10,000 years hasn't been enough time to change that biological imperative. Rut timing is almost exactly the same frame in the same areas from year to year. Weather, moon phases etc influence more of what hunters witness and therefore perceive. Bull to cow ratio could also be a factor as well as major disruption to any given herd -getting broken up and separated during the breeding, herd bull getting killed etc -those factors could spread breeding out longer than usual or breeding could be highly condensed. Regardless, estrous cycles aren't driven by weather or moon phases -its the amount of daylight.

Every year, everywhere I've ever hunted, without fail, I always hear the same comments about the "rut being weird this year." Makes one wonder what a normal rut is and who has experienced it? Some years, your season dates, your time off, weather, moon phases, and being in the right place at the right time align perfectly to experience rutting activity during daylight hours. Other years, not so much. When it comes to elk hunting, some people hear bugling and pronounce that the rut is on. What they don't realize is that elk are vocal year around. I've heard a slope full of screaming bulls in July. There can be rutting with lots of bugling, there can be rutting wiih no bugling, there can be bugling with or without rutting.

 

[cnelk]

Lots of the elk rut happens after dark - and especially in Colorado the 2 weeks of the ‘Quiet Time’