GunsAreFun
WKR
- Joined
- Apr 18, 2019
- Messages
- 1,787
After 19+ months of planning, a few friends and I headed out to Colorado for our first OTC archery elk hunt the night of the 17th. Here are the quick highlights:
- We got into elk 5 of 7 hunting days
- We hunted from 8000-10,500' but only found elk and/or fresh sign around 8,500'
- We found several areas (generally around 10-10.5k') absolutely loaded with elk poop that was a few days to a week old that I think were full of elk before muzzleloader season and/or the snowstorm pushed them out.
- Got into bugling matches with at least three bulls (one visually confirmed, one was moving way too fast to be a human, and one we didn't see but found their bed and extremely fresh urine and droppings)
- Called in two other groups
- In general, very few bugles were heard by us or other hunters (if they were being honest). We only heard one bugle at night, and that might have been another hunter. Some guides we overheard talking had basically resigned to sitting clients in stands/blinds over wallows in the morning.
- I let one fly on a cow but missed just low on an uphill shot (realized that night my rangefinder was not on angle adjustment...oh well)
- We came prepared to bivy but ended up camping at the trucks each night. It seemed that any area that had walks long enough to maybe justify a bivy camp was already full of other groups doing the same thing or spiking.
- The first area that we got bugle responses actually had two bulls firing off at us/each other. We went back there the next day but didn't get any response. That area SUCKED to get out of. Our two options to get out were to either walk 5 miles around the mountain on a mapped trail that didn't actually exist through rock/mud slides and fresh blowdowns or to literally send the 17 year old nephew up sketchy, steep climbs with climbing rope so the rest of us could get up with our bows and packs. The only way down was sliding down steep dirt patches that were too steep and loose to get back up. The only water available was a wallow and cow ditch and the vegetation was super thick with almost no flat area so spiking wasn't really practical. We ended up leaving that area after the second day.
- I have a love hate relationship with cattle. They are everywhere out there...like freaking everywhere. I'm sure they compete with elk for food, but at the same time, if it was not for their trails, navigating would have been very difficult at times.
- Buy a mule deer tag if you can get one. They are everywhere, and are not shy at all.
- I think some of the OTC pressure complaints are a bit overblown. Yes, I'm sure that affects how much the elk talk, but we only ran into hunters in the woods twice, which I think is pretty good considering the mileage we put on. It didn't take us long to figure out what areas other hunters overlook.
Lessons Learned
- Get a comfy bino harness. By day three or four, we all started ditching our harnesses because they were digging into our shoulders.
- Need to be more patient on setups and learn more about what to do when the elk aren't just running at calls. We bumped some elk because we weren't patient enough.
- You don't need fancy coolers. I used a second hand 150qt Coleman Extreme cooler filled with milk jugs, frozen water bottles, and stuffed with a moving blanket to fill in extra space. That held ice from about 3:00pm on the 17th until today. That included me purging 2-3 water bottles per day to keep a separate food cooler cold.
- Spend time researching elk habitat, behaviors, and e-scouting, not so much on gear. While I did a lot of both, I think the time I spent on the former was the reason we saw more elk than most first timers.
- Practice range estimation as well as ranging and then remember landmarks constantly. You will NOT have time to range an elk when it finally appears. The situation is way too dynamic.
- We got into elk 5 of 7 hunting days
- We hunted from 8000-10,500' but only found elk and/or fresh sign around 8,500'
- We found several areas (generally around 10-10.5k') absolutely loaded with elk poop that was a few days to a week old that I think were full of elk before muzzleloader season and/or the snowstorm pushed them out.
- Got into bugling matches with at least three bulls (one visually confirmed, one was moving way too fast to be a human, and one we didn't see but found their bed and extremely fresh urine and droppings)
- Called in two other groups
- In general, very few bugles were heard by us or other hunters (if they were being honest). We only heard one bugle at night, and that might have been another hunter. Some guides we overheard talking had basically resigned to sitting clients in stands/blinds over wallows in the morning.
- I let one fly on a cow but missed just low on an uphill shot (realized that night my rangefinder was not on angle adjustment...oh well)
- We came prepared to bivy but ended up camping at the trucks each night. It seemed that any area that had walks long enough to maybe justify a bivy camp was already full of other groups doing the same thing or spiking.
- The first area that we got bugle responses actually had two bulls firing off at us/each other. We went back there the next day but didn't get any response. That area SUCKED to get out of. Our two options to get out were to either walk 5 miles around the mountain on a mapped trail that didn't actually exist through rock/mud slides and fresh blowdowns or to literally send the 17 year old nephew up sketchy, steep climbs with climbing rope so the rest of us could get up with our bows and packs. The only way down was sliding down steep dirt patches that were too steep and loose to get back up. The only water available was a wallow and cow ditch and the vegetation was super thick with almost no flat area so spiking wasn't really practical. We ended up leaving that area after the second day.
- I have a love hate relationship with cattle. They are everywhere out there...like freaking everywhere. I'm sure they compete with elk for food, but at the same time, if it was not for their trails, navigating would have been very difficult at times.
- Buy a mule deer tag if you can get one. They are everywhere, and are not shy at all.
- I think some of the OTC pressure complaints are a bit overblown. Yes, I'm sure that affects how much the elk talk, but we only ran into hunters in the woods twice, which I think is pretty good considering the mileage we put on. It didn't take us long to figure out what areas other hunters overlook.
Lessons Learned
- Get a comfy bino harness. By day three or four, we all started ditching our harnesses because they were digging into our shoulders.
- Need to be more patient on setups and learn more about what to do when the elk aren't just running at calls. We bumped some elk because we weren't patient enough.
- You don't need fancy coolers. I used a second hand 150qt Coleman Extreme cooler filled with milk jugs, frozen water bottles, and stuffed with a moving blanket to fill in extra space. That held ice from about 3:00pm on the 17th until today. That included me purging 2-3 water bottles per day to keep a separate food cooler cold.
- Spend time researching elk habitat, behaviors, and e-scouting, not so much on gear. While I did a lot of both, I think the time I spent on the former was the reason we saw more elk than most first timers.
- Practice range estimation as well as ranging and then remember landmarks constantly. You will NOT have time to range an elk when it finally appears. The situation is way too dynamic.
