"Easterners", how did you pick your first CO OTC Unit?

[3darcher2]

That's so last year. This year it's Other People's HoneyHoles!

Jeremy

If the HoneyHole is in a burn, then all the better!

 

[Moondoondude]

For my first OTC elk hunt, I made a few family vacations to find an area I liked through Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado. Great part was, I liked all of them. I also like elk hunting and doing it every year. It's easiest to do that in Idaho and Colorado.

It's not like out east. "Hunting pressure" is relative. 10 cars at a 150 acre WMA here is normal. Guys out there will panic over 10 cars at a trailhead that provides access to 20 times that. But, I've had years where I saw people in the woods almost everyday. Good thing is, I am in elk everyday too - people or no people.

I am an obsessive, even spastic shedhunter. Finding elk and hunting elk in archery during the rut is a lot like shedhunting out east to me. You got to find a ton of places and be perfectly willing to just go in there and leave right away if it's not right. Never commit to a spot, commit to a style. My style involves high volume of locations. I pick out a ton of likely bedding areas / benches / areas and hunt as many of them as I can. Sometimes i will hit 3 or 4 in a day, I'll do This until i find something i like or I'll move on to another unit. Mobility is huge for me. This also makes it easy to hunt new units and new areas because after you see a lot of areas elk are in, it's easy to find those areas again on maps. I've only ever hunted OTC because even though i have points in some places, I've looked at so many places on maps in OTC areas that i want to hit that i end up planning years down the road.

So much of what you read on the internet about particular units is obviously not very reliable as well. You just got to commit to something and dive in. Don't be scared, go figure it out. That is the best part about it and why i hunt new areas.

 

[Thomas11]

Honestly first trip I made a local friend told shared a place he had hunted. He gave me some paper maps and away I went! I hadn’t done a lick of research or anything. I packed my truck, took my camping gear and headed west. Prolly still one of the better bugling rut fest elk hunts I’ve been on. I was hooked after that. Call me an addict. I guess my point is now I do all sorts of research, I’ve hunted multiple states and constantly obsess over it. Sometimes u can overthink things. With that said, I’ve been back to that spot no less than 3 diff times and never found elk there again like that first hunt. Pick a unit w decent elk populations, accessible public land and just go do it!

 

[Elkhntr08]

Pick a road, hike 5-6 miles in to a north facing slope that’s been burnt in the last couple years. Pick your bull. Shoot him and pack him out. Easy as that.

 

[cnelk]

If the HoneyHole is in a burn, then all the better!

No, no, no. Ya got it all wrong.

It’s gotta be a Honey Hole, in a Burn and in a Wilderness.

 

[Indian Summer]

The best otc units are the ones along I-25 north of Denver that I drove through to get to Wyoming. Lol

 

[cnelk]

The best otc units are the ones along I-25 north of Denver that I drove through to get to Wyoming. Lol

Those are awesome OTC units - if you can get permission since it’s all private land! And prairie at that!

 

[rayporter]

but you wont get altitude sickness!!!

 

[timekiller13]

There is no doubt that initially choosing a unit can be overwhelming. When I first started researching, I got myself all confused. I was analyzing stats, herd sizes, harvest records, success rates, etc. I felt like I was some sort of mathematician, trying to come up with some crazy formula that pointed to the "perfect unit." Then, I realized, that there is no "perfect OTC unit." They are all pretty much the same. So, I just picked a spot that offered the ability to move easily if needed, had decent access but also offered roadless areas, and had the type of terrain I was seeking.
Pressure is very subjective. Guys talk about trailheads being packed in Colorado. I hunt one of the most popular OTC units for archery (per CPW stats). I have seen exactly one hunter while in the field. Yes, I see vehicles and trailers parked at trailheads, but I have never had any issue with pressure in the field. I'm from the east, pressure is way different here. You can roll up to a parking area on opening day of deer season in NC, and there will be 50 trucks parked there, and those 50 trucks are accessing 6,000 acres of land. I hunted a permit hunt in NC once that gave out 250 permits for 8,000 acres. 1/3 of that acreage was farm land. So, you had 250 people on about 5,000 acres of huntable land. If you see 10-15 trucks at a trailhead in Colorado, that may seem like a lot, until you realize that trail allows you to access 100-200,000 acres of land.

 

[KHNC]

No, no, no. Ya got it all wrong.

It’s gotta be a Honey Hole, in a Burn and in a Wilderness.

In Wyoming

 

[Sako76]

A friend of a friend, it was disaster! I live on the east coast, this "friend" lived in Littleton and was supposed to have scouted NF near Carbondale. I knew things were bad when the "friend" got lost in the first 10 minutes of entering the NF. After awhile, we picked a camping site and hunted from there. No animals were killed or sighted.

 

[ColtyJr]

Once you've done the basic research and have some spots to try. You just have to go and see. There is no other way. Analyzing it will ultimately be fruitless. For a first timer, I always suggest truck camping and day hunting, or short overnighters. With no pre-scouting ability, or past experience, you need to be mobile. Map your likely spots out in a north to south, east to west, or loop fashion, and start on one end, then work you way through them. 2 spots (morning/evening) a day or one good hike until you get into elk. Nothing, move on.

Then you hike, you learn, you listen, and you have a good time in the woods.

That's it. There isn't a secret sauce or recipe. The best you can do on google earth is eliminate obvious bad areas, but you can't pick guaranteed elk areas. Perfect spots might be void of elk for whatever reason, so you move on. Have a plan, stick to it, and enjoy.

Jeremy

Sounds like a plan

 

[Kbhillhunter]

Without boots on the ground experience, we picked a season that worked best then just zeroed in on historical harvest data, heard population, and picked units with the best harvest % and lowest Hunter numbers.

 

[Jxferg7]

and

 

[Farmingdale's Finest]

No, no, no. Ya got it all wrong.

It’s gotta be a Honey Hole, in a Burn and in a Wilderness.

Hey you found my spot!

Joking aside my son and I did our first hunt last fall. Being from N.J. there was no chance of boots on the ground before the hunt. We chose from what I read is one of the most pressured OTC areas in the state but also one of the largest elk herds in the state. Spent well over 100 hours e-scouting and had 10 areas highlighted on my map.

We got there the Thursday afternoon before the opener and truck camped along a major highway that was next to my #1 spot. We heard 3 elk bugling within 10minutes of being in camp! The elk were in a North Facing heavily timbered slope where you had to drop 900 feet into the drainage in less than a 1/3 a mile and the same up the other side. On opening day we followed the sound of an elk that responded but got cliffed out. We turned around and bumped into a guy that said he had hunted this drainage for ten years and never saw anyone else before us. This was because we went where others weren’t willing.

We spoke with the guy and talked about our top 5 places we picked and he said we really did our homework because he killed elk in 4 of the 5 areas. We backed out and planned on hunting the area after a couple days rest because he and friends would be packing his cow out over the rest of the day.

He gave me an easier access point into one of the areas I had picked out and we found sign but no elk the next morning. We went to another area that afternoon and found nothing. The third day we went to go back where we were on the opener but I threw out my back in the morning so went into town and had breakfast. While eating my back felt better so we decided to try the 4th spot I had picked out since it was less steep. We found a water hole and sat on it for a couple hours and just before noon had a cow come down the ridge and got to about 80 yards but the wind swirled and it took off. We saw some nice Mule deer later but no elk.

The next morning we were going to go back to the original spot but my son woke up with altitude sickness and had to cut the trip short by 5 days.

We were almost successful in what turned out to be a long weekend by having multiple areas to hunt, were mobile by truck camping and were able to hunt up and down that highway access from camp to about 15 miles down the road. We also had bivy stuff Incase we needed to stay out out and most importantly we went where the terrain would discourage most from going.

Pick an area that has elk and just go is the best advice I can give you because you will find out being there with boots on the ground is going to very different than what you think you will find based upon what you see on aerial photos on google earth and the perception especially of the steepness of the terrain on a Topo Map!

Good luck!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[crock239]

Went OTC archery w others who had drawn NR muzzleloader tags w 1-2 preference points.

 

[HunterJoeMI]

In 1993 we picked a unit from the hunting regs and the statistics book they used to publish. We borrowed a bunch of equipment and my dads truck and drove out and went hunting. Packs were way to heavy! We brought to much food, to many cotton clothes, and used crappy boots and rain gear. We were into elk within the first hour of the hunt and screwed up several chances during the week. Time our life! Oh to be young again.

 

[Solescade]

I started with people I knew had been there

 

[Mosby]

I went to an Outdoor show and talked with people and a guy mentioned an area. Then I went out for a week over the summer and drove all over God's creation. Found a place I thought we were going to hunt and the two nights before the season we found a nice bull in a different area. We changed and went over there and killed 3 bulls that week and my brother missed one. The place looks like crap and people drive by it all day long but for some reason we see bulls most years we hunt there, so we keep going back when we can.