First Elk hunt: Mike and Dylan

[mallard833]

This is a long winded version of a First rifle season elk hunt in SW Colorado this past October that I shared with my good buddy Mike.

After a couple years of gear acquisition, around a year of planning, and a whole lot of online scouting, it was Saturday, October 8th. The solo drive from my house in upstate, NY to Southwest Colorado began at 9am. I think I drove until about 1:30am and ended up stopping to sleep at a rest stop in Missouri. I saw my first Pronghorn around dusk on Sunday evening in eastern Colorado, then my first Mule deer as I hit the mountains.. About this time, my buddy Mike started his 15 hour drive from California. We planned on meeting in a Walmart parking lot about an hour from where we would be hunting. I made it there around 11pm on Sunday the 9th. Mike was set to arrive around noon on Monday. That would give us 4.5 days to scout some of the locations we had looked at online before the season started on Saturday, the 15th. This would be the first hunt Mike and I had been on together in over ten years. We hunted together a lot while growing up, but not once since graduating High School.


Day 1
I woke up early and decided to get a little scouting in before Mike arrived around lunch. I had a great conversation at a general store with a local hunter who pointed me in the direction of a drainage that he thought we could do well in. I decided to drop my previous plans and take a look at the drainage he mentioned. After a 3 mile hike up the pack trail, I stopped to make a few unfruitful casts in the stream with an ultralight rod I had packed. There wasn't much elk sign to be seen, but I didn’t expect to see much that close to the trail anyways. On the map, it looked like the drainage opened up into some better elk habitat a few miles upstream. Before I headed back to meet Mike, I glassed the slope above me and caught a glimpse of a Bighorn as it went into some brush. After waiting another 15 minutes to hoping it would come into view, I hit the trail back to my truck happy to have spotted my first sheep..
After meeting up with Mike, we grabbed some last minute supplies and headed to a local range to check rifle zeroes. I brought along a Savage 116 in 30-06, While he had a Weatherby .270 short mag. After a few shots, we were both happy and headed for an evening scouting mission.
We headed up a forest service road to check out of the National Forest areas we had scouted online. Not long after we started, we spotted our first cow...unfortunately not a cow elk, but a beef cow. There would be plenty more to follow. We finally got to our destination and did spot a few mulies in the open before heading up the ridge. We bumped a couple of decent 4x4 mulies out of their beds, but did not see or hear any elk. On the way out, there was a fresh elk track crossing the forest service road 75 yards from the truck...it must have came out of the timer after we walked past on the way in.
At this point, I had about 8 miles in for the day and was feeling great. The altitude seemed to be having little effect on me. I wasn’t sure what to expect as until that point, I had never spent any time about 10,000 feet.

Day 2
We set out to scout further up the drainage I had been in the previous morning. The majority of the hike would be up a well beaten pack trail before branching off at the end. About 5 miles in, we saw our first elk of the trip, a cow and calf working through the creek bottom. We continued on without spooking them. A couple miles later, the valley got a bit wider and it started to look like a spot we may want to investigate further. At this point, we started to fish our way up what turned out to be the best stretch of a trout stream that either of us had ever seen. We had been expecting to catch small brook trout, but as it turns out the river was loaded with browns. It wasn’t uncommon to see 30 trout stacked up in a pool with a handful being in the 15-20” range and a couple over 20”. After you caught a couple out of a pool, you could move upstream 75 yards and it was the same thing all over again. It appeared that the fishing would be great as we continued up, but it was time to head back as we were about 10 miles from the trailhead. We had seen some fresh elk sign along the creek, but not the amount we were hoping for. By the time we got back to the trucks at 8pm or so, we had put on 20 miles and were beat. We hadn't planned on that many miles, but that’s how it worked out.

Day 3
We were beat from the day before and decided to do an easy hike as we didn’t want to push too hard before the season started. We made a 1.75 hour drive up a long, rough forest service road thinking when we got to the top we would have the place to ourselves. We got to the top and found a bunch of guys with a horse trailer. At that point we decided that there was a lot of space and we would hike out a few miles with camping gear, glass the evening, spend the night, then glass in the morning. We found a sheltered spot to pitch my mountain shelter lt then headed our separate ways to glass a couple hillsides on either side of a ridge. I sat above a small cliff with a nice spruce tree to lean against until dusk. At one point, I spotted a few elk in a meadow before they went behind some evergreens and never appeared again. There were about a mile away and visible for a matter of seconds, so I’m not sure if there were any bulls, or even an exact number of elk. As it got dark and I walked back to camp, 4 guys on horses passed a couple hundred yards below me on their way back to the camp we saw. Upon returning to camp, Mike had spent a while talking to them. They were 10 of them in the camp from Arkansas and had been coming to this same spot for over ten years. I guess they had shot 3 bulls in that time, and had always seen big mullies. This year one of them drew a mule deer tag, and they hadn’t seen one yet…
We decided that with that many hunters on horses, they would be all over the place and we more than likely wouldn't be able to get away from them. We broke camp in the dark and packed back to the trucks to re-group. We decided to cook some dinner before heading back down the mountain to scout another area the next day. I never would have guessed how long it took to boil water for pasta on my two burner propane camp stove at 11,500ft...Thankfully it only took a hour and fifteen minutes to get back down to the main road.

Day 4:
At this point we had seen a lot of people everywhere we had been, and not much elk sign at all. We sat down and tried to figure out the hardest place to get to(that we could reasonably access on foot) that we hadn’t already scouted. We started to drive up what would be 26 miles forest service road, some of which was pretty nasty. After going by countless campers/atv camps, and a lot of horse trailers, we go to the end of the road and to our surprise nobody was there. We loaded up our gear for the day and headed up the mountain to glass for the evening. Early on we ran into some fairly recent elk tracks, so that had us in good spirits. It seemed that there could be elk anywhere in the mix of open meadows and thick evergreens. We hiked up to the top of a large mesa and each picked a different creek drainage to glass for the evening. I ended up spotting two other guys doing the same thing we were, but on the other side of the drainage, a string of horses and a grand total of 0 elk. Mike saw nothing. We were pretty discouraged at this point. We had seen a ton of other hunters,very few elk and hardly any fresh elk sign at all. We decided to spend the night there and drive out in the morning as some of the road was pretty hairy.

Day 5:
By the time we got back down the mountain to the main road, it was pat 10am. We ate some lunch at a local bar/grill and ended up trying to find the beginning of a forest service road in a large housing development for about an hour. It was not easy to find and we wouldn't have done so without a combination of my gps/topo and Mike’s gps with OnXmaps. We hiked a couple miles into what seemed to be great elk habitat, but only saw a couple sets of recent tracks. It was mostly aspen and scrub oak with some tall evergreens in patches on one side and an old burn of the other side of the ridge. The pattern of no elk and beautiful mountain sunsets continued… When we got back to the trucks, we had some decisions to make as the next day was opening morning. We decided to grab some dinner then head to an area that we had marked on the map, but never got to scout. We pulled in at about 10pm and slept in the parking area.


More to come later...

 

[Hayguide]

Great reading so far-Sounds like Colorado for sure. I go out every year to SW Colorado -but when you get off those trails and a whole new word opens up!

 

[Robert Hendren]

^^^ ditto that on the SW. Great read so far

 

[njdoxie]

yes, good reading!

 

[mallard833]

Looking up the valley. Mike had a monster brown chase his spinner at the head of this pool...he was guessing close to 25"


Lunch in the mountains...


Mike with a 20 inch brown


Some beautiful country...


We saw a ton of mule deer on the trip...It's crazy how they would just stand there and look at you while you walked by 20 yards away. Definitely not like the whitetails I'm use to.

 

[mallard833]

Mike glassing on the 4th day.


One of the previously mentioned mountain sunsets...


Day 6: Opening Morning of First Rifle
After an early rise and some eggs and bacon, we headed out in the dark with high hopes. Starting out at 8500ft, we worked our way to about 10500ft. Once we hit 10000 ft and some more open terrain, we started to see some elk sign, nothing super fresh, but it was encouraging to see. We ended up spotting a couple tents in a draw and some hunters high above us. We decided to investigate a block of north facing timber that followed a creek bed thinking the elk would be in that vicinity. Once in the timber we came across some elk tracks. They had definitely been in there earlier that morning or the night before. We were able to work through the timber very quietly, but the elk were headed further back and the wind started to change. We decided to cut our losses and get out of there before blowing anything out. We hunted our way back to the trail and hiked out.


Day 7: Second day of First Rifle
We were pretty beat up and decided not to hike too far in. We thought that we would try to hunt the area we had seen the cow and calf in when scouting, It was about 4 miles up a well used trail, but there seemed to be a nice pocket of thick cover with some meadows across the creek. We didn’t think there would be anyone over there and that the elk might hole up there.The plan was for me to cross the creek using the two contractor bags I had in my pack, then we would still hunt into the wind up both sides of the creek for a mile or so before crossing back over and heading back to the trucks for lunch and a new game plan. Before crossing the creek, we ran into a fresh set of elk tracks, so we were hopeful. I put on my makeshift waders over my boots and crossed 25 feet of shin deep water uneventfully.
While working my way through the creek bottom, I came up on a pair of young bull moose. They stood their ground 60 yards away and let me take photos before walking away. Every time I see a moose in person, I’m amazed as to how big they really are. I continued up the backside of the creek bottom through some nice meadows and timber without seeing an elk. There was plenty of older sign, but nothing real fresh. I’m guessing it would have been a great spot during archery season. Once I the valley walls closed in and I ran out of creek bottom, it was time to cross back to the other side. I picked out a spot that looked to be ankle to shin deep and donned my trusty contractor bag waders. The water turned out to be knee deep about halfway across. The rocks had started to take their toll on the bags and I ended up with boots full of water. After changing socks on the other side, I put my wet boots on and sloshed my way back to the truck and immediately stuffed my boots full of paper towels while we came up with a gameplan.

Moose along the creek


We had heard from both a local outfitter and some guys with a horse camp that the elk were still bugling way up the drainage. The outfitter actually pulled in with his horses to go pack out a few elk for one of his drop camps while we were trying to make a decision. The area that those two camps were hunting was way too far in for us to get an elk out of by foot. We decided to head in that direction, but not go quite as far up the drainage. After a quick chat with the outfitter, who was a really nice guy, we gave him $40 to have him drop our loaded packs about 6 miles down the trail where we would branch off up another creek drainage a couple miles. He even gave us a couple tips on hunting the area we were headed to. The area we planned on hunting would be about 8 miles from the trucks. It was getting cold enough at night that if we shot something that for out, it would be fine for multiple days while we packed out. We each threw some snacks, water, and a jacket into our small day packs and set off to catch up with our gear. . The light packs gave our back and feet a well needed break from being loaded down. We arrived at our gear around dusk and started up the hill to the area we planned on setting up camp. After about a mile and a half, we knew that we would be coming to a large meadow soon, and rather than fumble through it in the dark and spook anything already out there, we decided to stop short. The wind would be blowing through the meadow to the area we decided to camp in. We setup camp and cooked some dinner. The plan was to get up early and listed for bugles, then try to get close enough for a shot.

I was wishing I had my DSLR instead of a point and shoot for this one...


I had the insulated static v. Mike decided to leave his thermarest in his truck and go ultralight...

 

[mallard833]

Day 8 Third day of First Rifle

We woke up early planning to hike up the drainage a couple miles and listen for bugles. Once we got to where the timber started to open up we sat down for a bit. We thought we could hear some movement off in the timber, but it was hard to tell. The wind was perfect for us now, so we decided not to push through the meadow before we could see. We had about an hour before shooting light, so we decided to drop our day packs there and head back to get camp. It took us about forty minutes to get camp and haul it up the hill to where our daypacks were. We stashed our packs in the bushes and waited the last 20 minutes for shooting light. At one point we thought we heard a faint bugle, but weren't positive.

As we quietly worked our way through the timber, we could catch small glimpses of the meadow through the trees. I thought I caught some movement, so I pulled up my binoculars and sure enough, there was an elk walking through the meadow about 100 yards away. I whispered to mike who was a few steps ahead of me. We slowly worked our way forward another twenty yards to where we had a better view while still being in the cover. Mike spotted another elk just down the hill from the one I spotted. At this point, I knew the one I was watching was a bull, but it’s head was down feeding, so I couldn’t tell if it was legal. Where we stopped mike was a step ahead of me and a few steps to my left. He could not see the elk I was looking at and I could not see the one he was looking at. He knew that the one he was watching was a bull, but thought mine was a cow. Since I had spotted them first, he was trying to tell me to shoot the bull and he would try to shoot the cow. At this point the bull I was watching must have heard something because he picked his head up and looked our way. I saw that one of his brow tines was long enough, and prepared to shoot. Mike finally realized that they were both bulls and was trying to coordinate a 1-2-3 shot for both of us. He had a solid rest on a tree, while I was kneeling, but had no tree to rest on. At this point my heart was pounding and I knew we had limited time before the bull spooked. I also was thinking about how pissed we would be if neither of us got a shot. I believe Mike started to whisper “ don’t shoot on 2,” but all I heard was “2”. We had agreed previously that if we tried to shoot in unison, it would be a 1, 2, shoot on 3. The bull was quartering slightly towards me, but not enough to matter much. I picked a spot just behind his shoulder, waited a second and squeezed the trigger. That’s when all hell broke loose. Both elk took off up the meadow back towards the timber and out of our view. The blast from my shot instantly fogged Mike’s scope, so he couldn't see anything. I saw that the second bull that I couldn't see was bigger and told Mike. We hurried out into the meadow hoping to see the bulls before they disappeared into the timber. Luckily, Mike had a diaphragm in his mouth and cow called as we ran out in the meadow. We only saw one bull as it stopped 100 yards on the hillside to look back. Mike shot off hand and the elk took off into the timber out of sight. While we were trying to figure out where the elk went, I spotted an elk facing away from us about 50 yards from where Mike had shot. It seemed odd that it had it’s head down paying no attention to us. I assumed it was the bull that I had shot, but didn't know for sure, so I knew I couldn’t take a follow up.. As we waited hoping for it to turn broadside so we could see blood on its side, it started to sway back and forth and dropped! We walked over and admired the 4x3 bull quickly before turning our attention to where mike shot. We immediately found good lung blood and after a short tracking job, there was a 4x5 bull.

At this point the adrenaline started to slow a bit and one of us looked at the other and said, “We both just shot our first elk within 20 seconds of each other and they died 75 yards apart!” We decided to drag Mike’s elk down the steep hillside so we could take a picture with both bulls, figuring that it would never happen quite like that again. By the time we took a bunch of photos, and got the elk quartered up, it as noon.

We were eight miles from the trucks, but knew we wanted to get one load out that day. We decided to shuttle all of the meat back to where we had camped the night before. It was in the timber along a creek, so it was quite a bit cooler than on the edge of the meadow. I think we were done with that at about 3pm. After a short rest, we loaded up a portion of camp along with our rifles and one quarter each and headed back to the trucks. I elected to take a hind quarter and he took a front shoulder + backstrap. My boot’s still weren’t completely dry from my creek crossing the day before. That combined with the heaviest pack I’ve ever carried made for an AWESOME trek back to the truck. We got back around 8:30pm and I don’t think I’ve ever been that exhausted. We headed to town for a real dinner, a much needed stop to resupply on moleskin, and a good night’s sleep.

My elk

Mike's elk

Both elk



Day 9, 10, 11: Finding out what you’re made of...
It took us three more 14 mile round trips to get all of our meat, gear, and antlers out. We finished the last load early Thursday afternoon. I will tell you that packing an elk out eight miles is every bit as hard as anything you have read on that subject. After eating lunch at a Mexican restaurant, it was time to start the drive home.


The drive home:
I made it to the Kansas border before pulling over and sleeping for the night. The next day, I made a pit stop in Missouri at my Mother in law’s for dinner, then made it as far as Ohio before pulling over for the night. I pulled into my driveway Saturday evening. After that, all that was left was trimming all the meat, packaging it up, getting it in the freezer, and planning our next elk hunt!

I'll post some gear comments, and overall reflections on the trip tomorrow.

 

[Hunter6]

That was an awesome read. Congrats.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Paradactal]

Epic hunt!!

 

[Hayguide]

Very nice read.... get planning for your second hunt!

 

[UtahJimmy]

Great write-up, thanks for sharing!

 

[realunlucky]

Pretty amazing meeting the East and West coast in Colorado heading in blind and making it happen. If you guys had only killed one bull that far in after packing it out would you have went back to the same area knowing the distance of the pack out? Congratulations that's a heck of a trip

Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk

 

[Jon Boy]

Wow awesome hunt and great story! Congrats fellas!

 

[Northernpiker]

Congratulations, great story I enjoyed the read, Thank you.

 

[mallard833]

All in all we figured that we put 118 miles on our boots...36 of those were packing out elk.

Sent from my VS425PP using Tapatalk

 

[chuckeglenn]

Congrats guys!

 

[molliesmaster]

Great read!

Thank you for sharing.

 

[Hayguide]

I was out there 1st season Rifle as well this past fall- hot, windy and a full moon. You guys did well to over come tough conditions! If you got the name of that outfitter you should contact him to pack your stuff in again! That's unheard of- but I'm wondering was that the outfitter or his wrangler doing the favor? Outfitter may want more $$ next time. Wranglers don't book the hunts. Either way-it was a great thing to offer and shows what a kind gesture can do.

 

[targetpanic]

Great story and pics!!!

 

[mallard833]

I was out there 1st season Rifle as well this past fall- hot, windy and a full moon. You guys did well to over come tough conditions! If you got the name of that outfitter you should contact him to pack your stuff in again! That's unheard of- but I'm wondering was that the outfitter or his wrangler doing the favor? Outfitter may want more $$ next time. Wranglers don't book the hunts. Either way-it was a great thing to offer and shows what a kind gesture can do.

It was the actual outfitter that did it. I talked to him a few different times throughout the trip and he seemed like a great guy. We did call him about packing out the elk, but he was busy packing out elk for guys he had in drop camps. We shot them on Monday and he wouldn't have been able to pack them out until Saturday.