aquanologist
FNG
A little mortality scare last year caused me to push the pedal on my bucket list. I’ve been absolutely infatuated with the West in recent years and having pretty much checked all my boxes in the south east, my hunting partner and I decided to go CO OTC rifle. With a total of zero elk experience between us, we chose to hunt the Arapaho Ntnl Forest because he has spent some time horseback riding there and we had access to a cabin at a very reasonable price. The cabin proved to be clutch because our camping gear (and our thin FL blood) probably wouldn’t have held up to the multiple snow events during the trip.
After e-scouting the hell out of the unit (thank you internet) and a couple of conversations with local contacts, we had what I thought was a legit hunt plan. Well, pre-season scouting went out the window due to my buddy’s wedding anniversary. Then a tropical storm was forecast to make landfall on us opening day so we didn’t even leave FL until Sunday morning. So, we arrived in CO Monday morning to a fresh blanket of snow and began to cross off plans B, C, D, and E due to the sheer number of trailers and camps at the trailheads – I expected to have competition but there were a lot more folks than I was expecting. Somehow plan A remained in play.
Tuesday morning found two complete newbies attempting to climb a ridge covered in beetle kill covered in snow in the dark. With several tumbles and lots of rest breaks it took us almost 3 hours to get to the spot we had marked. The good news was that there was a lot of fresh sign in the area, so much so that when I set my pack down I looked to my right and a very impressive, heavy horned 5x5 was staring at me at 18 yards. After a moment frozen in time, he blew down the hill, my gun still strapped to my pack. About 30 seconds later, I’m staring in disbelief and my buddy points down the hill at two more elk – a spike and a 4x4. Thinking I lost the chance at the mature bull, I went ahead and shot the raghorn. And that’s where a good day went bad. After the shot, I see a second 5x5 had been following about 50 yards behind those two, dang it. The shot felt good and we found blood, tissue, and a small piece of bone so our hopes were up. After following blood through 2.5 miles of beetle kill away from the truck, we were forced to call off the search. We found where the three elk bedded down and there was no blood when they got up and left. Now we were 4 miles from the truck and the sun is sinking low. I won’t recount the details but our trip might be best described as a sh*#show wrapped in a cluster F!@k. Bruised, beaten, exhausted, and dejected, we’d experienced the highs and lows of hunting in one day.
Fresh snow that night eliminated any chance of locating that elk the following day so we tried a few other locations, some closed by the forest service, others just not that good. A stop at a public shooting range revealed that my rifle was shooting significantly low so we can at least explain what happened. On one of my tumbles that first morning, I landed against a tree with my rifle. That was all it took for an ethical shot to become what we think was probably a low-chest and leg wound. At least there was an explanation. The rest of the week was uneventful as we did return to the plan A spot and got into cows but no bulls the rest of the hunt.
Overall, we got what we went for - an adventure, a story, and an opportunity at an elk. This year I’m pretty psyched I got drawn for NM so here we go again…
After e-scouting the hell out of the unit (thank you internet) and a couple of conversations with local contacts, we had what I thought was a legit hunt plan. Well, pre-season scouting went out the window due to my buddy’s wedding anniversary. Then a tropical storm was forecast to make landfall on us opening day so we didn’t even leave FL until Sunday morning. So, we arrived in CO Monday morning to a fresh blanket of snow and began to cross off plans B, C, D, and E due to the sheer number of trailers and camps at the trailheads – I expected to have competition but there were a lot more folks than I was expecting. Somehow plan A remained in play.
Tuesday morning found two complete newbies attempting to climb a ridge covered in beetle kill covered in snow in the dark. With several tumbles and lots of rest breaks it took us almost 3 hours to get to the spot we had marked. The good news was that there was a lot of fresh sign in the area, so much so that when I set my pack down I looked to my right and a very impressive, heavy horned 5x5 was staring at me at 18 yards. After a moment frozen in time, he blew down the hill, my gun still strapped to my pack. About 30 seconds later, I’m staring in disbelief and my buddy points down the hill at two more elk – a spike and a 4x4. Thinking I lost the chance at the mature bull, I went ahead and shot the raghorn. And that’s where a good day went bad. After the shot, I see a second 5x5 had been following about 50 yards behind those two, dang it. The shot felt good and we found blood, tissue, and a small piece of bone so our hopes were up. After following blood through 2.5 miles of beetle kill away from the truck, we were forced to call off the search. We found where the three elk bedded down and there was no blood when they got up and left. Now we were 4 miles from the truck and the sun is sinking low. I won’t recount the details but our trip might be best described as a sh*#show wrapped in a cluster F!@k. Bruised, beaten, exhausted, and dejected, we’d experienced the highs and lows of hunting in one day.
Fresh snow that night eliminated any chance of locating that elk the following day so we tried a few other locations, some closed by the forest service, others just not that good. A stop at a public shooting range revealed that my rifle was shooting significantly low so we can at least explain what happened. On one of my tumbles that first morning, I landed against a tree with my rifle. That was all it took for an ethical shot to become what we think was probably a low-chest and leg wound. At least there was an explanation. The rest of the week was uneventful as we did return to the plan A spot and got into cows but no bulls the rest of the hunt.
Overall, we got what we went for - an adventure, a story, and an opportunity at an elk. This year I’m pretty psyched I got drawn for NM so here we go again…
