No elk, but here's a story

[Chris in TN]

We got home last night. As I've mentioned in several threads, I took my daughter, 1st season, secondary draw tag, in CO, in a unit that is 'limited' (more on that later) in 1st season but OTC for 2-3 season. People often (and rightly) complain that new guys will show up, ask questions, then not return or contribute. So I'll give you more details than you want, and I think I might have some insight that might help other new elk hunters. This was my seventh trip to CO in my lifetime, my sixth time hunting (though I didn't personally have a tag this time), and the first time I've hunted elk on public land since the early 1990's.

(TLDR: We did not shoot at an elk. We had a lot of interaction with elk. We made a few mistakes, did a few things right, came close twice, but went home empty handed. Would I do this exact hunt again? Short answer: no. Longer answer: yes, if bow season, or if it was only one of multiple chances I had to hunt every year. But not for a once in a lifetime hunt or a once-every-few-years trip)

Most of this story will be 'I told you so' level stuff, and predictable and boring, to the western residents of this forum. Perhaps some of it will be educational or otherwise useful to the easterners here contemplating western hunting. Some of this will be in a narrative format; other parts will be copied and pasted from notes I wrote during the hunt, and it'll be a mess, and nobody's obligated to try to read it all and I don't have an editor to turn it into prose.

Tuesday 10/7: leave home to AR.

Wednesday 10/8: AR to NM.

Thursday (October 9)

Arrived midday. Detoured through our plan D(?) area just to look around. Check into cabin. Drive to the area that's sort of the middle of our main plans, hike down spur road. We ended up doing a little over a 2.5 mile hike with maybe a couple hundred feet of elevation gain, at near 9700' starting elevation, and handled it fine, to my pleasant surprise. We saw some elk poop, too, but not fresh. We saw a few deer almost everywhere we went (some even bedded *in* the road itself). Near dark we saw a small herd of elk on private land (next to public) and then some cows on public land. Then the rain started. Some of y'all may have heard that it rained a bit in CO a couple weeks ago. That played a factor in our hunt.

Friday, woke to rain. Drove back up to our 'plan A' area. With the rain, what had been a dry, flat-ish road the day before, turned into a 2" layer of mud. It wasn't hard to drive on, at all, but we did slide a bit in a few places and when sliding off the road means a huge steep drop, it raised a bit of a red flag for me as far as access. With no experience from which to judge the road, I didn't know how badly it would deteriorate as the rain got worse. We did find a herd of elk on public land, easily glassable, with at least one legal bull, but no way to really get to them from below. I decided to attempt to reach them from above, the next day. That evening I talked to one of the local cattle wranglers and actually got some decent info from them.

I don't remember what day this happened, it sort of took place over time, but, again, as you may have heard, parts of SW CO got significant rain. Our original plan was to stay in a cabin for 5 days then camp for 3-6 days with a 1-night return to the campground and a tent site so we could have a shower and a lower-altitude camp spot for one night.



Seeing the forecasts for multiple inches of rain followed by some cooler nights and some very windy days/nights made me rethink the camping off of the slippery higher-altitude access road. I planned our camping trip based on the expectation of typically drier weather and soil you would expect in October. Nobody really expects back to back tropical storms and while I knew that early snow tends to melt and dry up enough to drive on, from past experience, I wasn't sure at all how multiple inches of rain would impact hiking, or camping. And while I don't mind at all the idea of camping in a couple inches of snow, camping in higher winds (as forecasted for our hunt days) sort of concerned me.

And we'd already seen two separate herds of elk down low. And my mentality thus far was that the hurdle in public elk hunting was just finding elk. Right? Once we found them, that was the hard part. Right?

So we decided to scrap the higher-altitude hunting plan (that involved a long hike up a closed USFS road that, per the map, was about a 5% grade, up to a relatively flat hunting area) and focus on hunting lower elevations from the cabin. We extended the cabin rental for the duration of the trip, figuring with the rain we'd best commit to that while the booking was still available. As it turns out, someone had already booked part of the duration, so we ended up needing to switch to a different rental. Not a big deal, but in hindsight, perhaps someone booking it at the last minute should have been a clue.

Saturday AM, we waited until the herd we'd seen the night before had likely bedded for the day, then hiked in (in the rain again) to reach them. We got to them (using GPS and google earth) and I am certain that we were within 300 yards or less of them, with the wind in our favor, only to find that the only real way to get to them from above, was to go down a fairly steep (25%?) slope. That was a little more than I wanted to attempt with my daughter (or so I thought on day one of our trip). So we decided to file those elk away as sort of a backup plan. We did see some bear poop on that hike but actually saw very little elk sign. Later that day (see below) I learned an important lesson: Hiking forest service roads, even the closed ones, is an awesome way to get to hunting areas, but don't expect to find them littered with elk sign. Instead, use them to get to hunting spots then hike 100-400 yards off those access roads. That's where the sign will be. Elk live *near* them but not *on* them.

We returned to the car and circled around several miles to see if the herd was still where we'd found them. Yep. We'd hiked within 300 yards of them and back without spooking them. Well, that's good. A small victory and a confidence booster for us.

We took a short breather at the cabin then headed to another spot. There was a decent sized meadow not far away in plan C(?) spot. I saw a side-access path on the map (the next hill over) and we decided to go up that side-trail and see if we could pop over the hill and see across the valley. Keep in mind that it has been raining almost 24 hours now. We'd wetted out in our rain gear that morning. I *think* this might have been the day we ran back to Walmart to grab spare rainsuits. Either way, we went back that evening without rain pants. If you're gonna wet out from sweat, might as well skip the pants. So we hiked several hundred yards from the road then started up an oak-brush hillside to reach a ridgetop where we could view the upper end of the meadow. We almost fell a couple times (another slope of 20-25%) but soon reached the top. Along the way we noticed that as soon as we got off the 'easy' part of the hike, where cattle had been all summer, we started seeing elk sign everywhere. Bull poop, cow poop, old and new, everywhere. Rain or not, the hunt was looking up. We're adapting, right? We're soaking wet and most of a mile (not in a straight line, lol) from the car, but happy as we are in elk sign.







Also - while we were on the first ridgetop we could hear a bull bugle in the distance but in a direction we could identify after a few bugles. Neat.

From the ridgetop we realize that we can see the far side of the meadow but not well enough to really hunt it and most of it is a bit far for my daughter to shoot. We decide to push a bit further and go off the far end of the ridge and return to our entry trail. As we descend I notice that the trail goes further up the hollow away from the car. It's getting late in the day but I can't stand not walking another few yards to see where this trail goes. At the top, we find that it pops over the very terminus of our little ridge, and as soon as it does, you can see a pond on the other side. I told my daughter that we should very quickly go circle the pond to look for fresh tracks then get out of there. We make it almost to the pond when we hear a noise. It halfway sounded like a cow elk, but was a shorter sound.

Was that a bird? (honestly, I didn't know). We stopped and stood still for a minute. We heard the sound again. We whispered to each other about how I wasn't sure what that was but it could be an elk.

(Hindsight: It was a classic cow alarm bark, but I didn't know that at the moment. This was my first elk-spooking).

 

[Chris in TN]

I don't think the elk saw us. I am almost positive they didn't smell us. I think they heard us squish-squishing through the mud. So first one of them barked, then another, and it was dawning on me that what we were hearing wasn't a bird, it was an alarmed cow - first one, then another distinct animal made the same sound.

Then the bull bugled. Not an alarm bugle, but a full-blown bugle. I suspect that his cows had started to walk away and this was him doing his 'herd-the-cows' thing. He bugled twice, full and loud, as they began to slowly move off. I wish I had a picture of the look on my daughter's face, or mine for that matter. She grinned like a possum. We'd found them and they weren't too spooked.

On the trip back to the cabin we saw yet another herd from the road. I immediately saw a strategy to hunt them but also saw a problem: These were on the side of the road. It was certain that if they stayed here every night, another hunter would see them and we'd have to outrun them to hunt here. Better stay with the first spot. Right?

Sunday morning we returned to the same area. I wanted to go check on where the other bull had bugled the night before. We found tracks in the road where a number of elk had crossed from that area, so I thought this would be the perfect day to run in there and look around.







Three hundred yards later I learned that a big pile of elk tracks in the road doesn't mean every elk in the spot has left. Several cows jumped up 50 yards away and trotted off. But there was sign there and I could see a hunting strategy for the spot. Alright, this will work, let's leave.



We went back to where we'd been busted the night before, but from a different direction. We had a 40-yard encounter with a 2 year old mulie along the way, found bear scat, more elk sign, then arrived near where we'd been the night before and found a very good spot to set up to hunt the area. This would be Plan A and we were, at this point, very excited. It stopped raining for a while and we sat down and ate lunch on the trail. Having been told all summer that merely finding elk was sometimes very difficult, I thought we had this tiger by the tail.

We then went back to our originally planned area and found horse camps being set up at several of our destinations. We'd expected that tag numbers in this unit would leave hunters fairly scattered. That was a mistake and I was beginning to realize that. We went to nap, and to my surprise, a local member of this forum (one of three guys who have been extremely helpful to us this summer) swings by to check on us. We talked for a couple hours and I enjoyed it and he offered to come hunt with us, which led to a bit of a dilemma: I needed the help and would have relished it (plus the friendship) under any other circumstances. But I've got a teenaged girl with me and while she is mature beyond her age at home, I've already noticed that she's awkward when she's outside of her comfort zone and this trip has already pushed her waaaaaayyyy outside of that zone and she is, in some ways, struggling a bit. I expected part of that but was reluctant to push it much further by adding someone she didn't know to the mix. My own dad took me on a similar trip when I was 14 so I get it. Part of this trip was to be a growth opportunity for her, but I don't want to force it. She's my little baby girl who I held in one arm not that long ago.

Monday AM, we went to one of our backup spots. We hiked in the rain, again, soaking wet, and once again found ourselves a mile from the car in the rain, but there was not much elk sign to see (hindsight: I should have pushed us off the closed USFS road into the woods, but I didn't). As we turned around we could hear a bull bugle from maybe 3/4-1 mile away. I wrestled with whether it was an elk or a hunter. I finally decided it was an elk as it was raining and who goes locating in the rain? As we turned to go back to the car, it began to thunder and lightning, within a couple miles of us. We were fairly low elevation and not really exposed on the overgrown road, so we double-timed it to the car. Being out that far while knowing there were thunderstorms forecasted was probably stupid, and I felt terrible for it, given recent events this year.

That evening, we went to yet another spot and hiked down to a meadow. It was gorgeous and we liked it a lot and as we sat there a bull started bugling from maybe less than a mile away. I decided to return to this spot and see more of it the next day. As we left we saw a decent-sized bear cross the road.

Tuesday AM – find other hunters scouting the previous night's spot. I made a point to catch up to them and explain to them that we wanted to follow them in just to see a couple aspects of the area then we likely wouldn't return to the area as it was sort of low on our list of spots. They ended up being a super nice set of guys, and it turned out that they were staying at a cabin near us and we bumped into them several more times and they were just really nice folks. But on the way in and out that morning, we noticed that suddenly there were campers and horse trailers everywhere. Places that were empty for days were filling up like parking lots. I don't mean trailheads; I mean every pullout.



We decided to go back to our main plan-A spot and check one more aspect of it. We round the curve and see a truck. A campsite. Three people camped there. I stopped and spoke with them briefly and they seemed a little peeved that we'd even dare to pull into the spot since they were there. This started a bit of an internal struggle - setting up a camp doesn't give you exclusive access to a spot and I have an incredibly low tolerance for bullys. But at the same time, walking in behind a bunch of other people isn't how I want my kids to experience elk hunting. I weighed my options, bit my tongue a bit, and decided we'd go elsewhere. The guys weren't complete jerks, by the time we left they had actually warmed up a lot and went from bluffing to almost begging us to not hunt there. But, again, this isn't what I wanted for my kid.

As we drove back to the cabin, things were getting real: Places we'd thought of checking out were filling up with campers. Some had horse trailers. I spent hours that night trying to figure out a morning plan. That became an every-night thing for the rest for the rest of the trip.

Wednesday AM – At least 10-11 cars parked to hunt our previous first choice spot. One shot early, then a guy shot 5x to kill a bull (talked to him later). Several other shots throughout morning. Before dawn we decided to go to another spot, and of course there are 2 cars parked in what I'd call a 'small' area. We decided to approach from a different direction. In hindsight I think one of the other hunters spooked elk out of that little meadow before dawn, so as we approached a spot we hoped to set up to intercept morning elk headed to bed, we found them already there, and they ran. Missed opportunity and likely our biggest single moment mistake of the trip. We moved off into the far edge of this 'spot' and found an opening with some rubs and some poop and fresh tracks nearby. Sat there a while and decided to return that afternoon.

Wednesday PM – saw turkeys, mule deer does, and coyote in our new spot.

Thursday AM – return to our new spot. Saw nothing. Late AM we walked to the edge of the clearing just to better assess what our spot was. A clearing of maybe an acre with rubs, fresh poop, lots of green grass, and near private land. Midday we went to look at another spot on the map, where we’d seen some distant elk Wednesday AM. Turns out they were on private but I couldn't tell that from where we'd seen them. That afternoon we noticed that our three guys who'd wanted our first-choice spot to themselves had left. Talking to other hunters made me think they might have shot one bull, but I know for certain that they spent their first morning staring at a sea of orange, so, ehhh, joke's on them, I guess. Went to lunch in town and grocery store. Returned to same spot; had 8 Merriam’s gobblers and jakes within shotgun range of us that afternoon. Offered my daughter the chance to sleep late Friday morning then go scout a new spot I’d seen on the map, across the river from us. I’d heard no shooting in that direction. She said she wanted to hunt the AM then go scout and not miss any hunting opportunities. She's being a trooper.

 

[Chris in TN]

Friday AM – colder weather, removed puffy jacket from pack and brought puffy blanket

instead. Heard no shots, stayed warm, returned to cabin for late morning nap before

hiking to a new potential spot. Talked to another hunter. Appears that the total harvest

from the spot we had wanted to hunt was 3 or 4 bulls and possibly 5 from putting

together all the different hunt accounts I heard. At least a dozen vehicles hunting the

same area and seemed to be pushing herd further uphill as the days go on. I'm guessing, conservatively, that there were 30+ hunters (I know one truck had 5) in that area, and the guys who'd pushed deepest up the hills, had been playing a game of elk pinball with each other.



We visited another area at lunchtime and hiked a steep vertical place to reach a meadow near

private land. Meadow was overgrown with willow and unhuntable. Moved to another

promising area, a downhill meadow, and found sign in both places, but all appeared to

be several days old at minimum, supporting the idea that elk everywhere had been ran

out by pressure. We have cows/pigs/goats at home and most animal poop follows a

fairly consistent model of aging so I’m fairly confident in my poop-age estimations. Late

evening we heard what was almost certainly another hunter trying to bugle to elk. Heard

a cow call at dark, but it was a single cow call. Obviously not a herd of elk, and very

likely a hunter, though it struck me as odd given that the bugles had seemed ¼ to ½

mile away and the cow call seemed to be within 200 yards. We didn’t think any other

hunters were that close to us. It could have been elk, and for several minutes we were

tuned in to that area hoping to see an elk materialize, and given its direction I think if it

had been an elk we would have seen it.



Saturday AM – My daughter is very slow to get out of bed. She’s beat, and I can see it.

She’s still positive but she’d tired. She’s never been up before dawn 4 days in a row.

About 0745 we hear a noise behind us and turn in time to see what my daughter said was 6-

8 cows (I only saw 2-3) and a really nice bull (we both saw him) coming off a steep hill

behind us. I don’t think they heard, saw, or smelled us. I think they were just coming off

a steep hill the easy way, letting momentum push them. At the base of the hill they

turned and walked away. I believe they were the herd we spooked several days ago, coming

back ‘home’ and they’d reached their favorite bedding bench. They turned (we checked

tracks later to confirm this) and walked towards where we had spooked elk on Saturday

and Wednesday previously. We *think* this is their home turf and we have hope of trying

to circle around and hunt their feeding meadow this evening.

Saturday PM; we napped early so we could hit the meadow that evening. Amazingly, we got to the parking area first. (Note: I think the middle of the 3rd day is when people start giving up; this is now the 4th day). We set up in a perfect spot given the wind and sun. It's obvious that someone had been to the spot in the last day or two from both their parking spots and their boot tracks but we aren't sure how they'd hunted it. We lost their trail.

About an hour before dark, we are excited, and for the first time since season opened, we had hope. We needed it. Well, my daughter looks up and exclaims 'dad, elk!'. I look to see the bright yellow glow of a bull's coat and my heart leapt. I look through the binocular and.....it's a spike. But it's a live elk within easy shooting range and that is the best we'd had thus far. We watched him and he ended up staying the entire rest of the day. He was within 120 yards for a long time. At the end of legal shooting hours we resigned ourselves that the herd wasn't going to show. But the spike was still there so we were very reluctant to make a lot of motion. We began to slowly stuff our gear into our packs (more on what we'd unpacked and why, later). As we finished that, I checked with the bino to see if the spike was still there. He was. Then I scanned the other end of the meadow where we'd hoped to see elk.

There they were.

I'm convinced it was the herd we'd seen headed there that morning. Several small brown elk-blobs in the twilight and one much larger and very bright yellow big elk-blob, about 225 yards away. Of course it's past legal light by at least 10 minutes and I was struggling to see them with the bino and I knew there was no legal way or practical way to do anything now. I pointed them out to my daughter than let her use my bino to see them. We were both excited and dejected - a partial victory, they'd done what we thought, but they weren't stupid and they'd waited until dark to feed.

We quietly finished packing and snuck out. As we neared the other end of the meadow, we bumped some moo-cows (the rains hindered the annual fall cattle removal) and they in turn bumped the spike (that I think we'd done a good job of circling up to that moment). Did he really spook, or just decide to leave when the cows did, or did he actually see us? I do not know.

The next day we're completely tired of our little spot in the woods. I decide to try what I thought was a very secluded closed road. We get there and there are two cars there. which, for that spot, is a lot. So we leave and head towards one secluded spot a long way off, in the area we'd originally planned to hunt, at much higher elevation. Along the way we see several cows in places we could see but not hunt. Traffic is dying down. We see people breaking down camp. We get to higher elevation and see that the road had dried well but was very rough (all the roads were rough post-storm) but I was blown away by the traffic still in that area. We spot some cows about 1.5 miles away on a very, very steep hillside. This was an hour after daybreak and they were in the wide open without a care in the world, as if they hadn't been bothered all week. I was later able to figure out why:







Looking at google earth here at home, I can see exactly where they were, within 50' or so due to a specific fallen tree in the picture I snapped through our spotting scope. We could have made a 3000 yard hike with 1300' of gain to get within 1/4 mile of them on a 33% slope uphill. Ehhh, no thanks.

We get to our secluded little spot we hoped had been overlooked up high. Two horse trailers were parked there with two other cars.

Sunday evening we return to our meadow from the night before. Nothing. Hunt's over. Monday morning I slept until almost 7, then we got up and packed and headed home.



Things that work on the trip:
-trek poles. ours were cheap generic CF from Amazon but I'll never hike without them again.
Lowa boots. Not a single blister despite more hiking than I'd done in 35 years. Having a boot dryer in the cabin helped, a ton.
-LAPG daypack. We ended up stowing our hiking packs in a cooler and using my old LAPG day pack to tote our daily stuff.
-puffy blanket for cool day sits. I had a $40 Amazon model and it worked great.
Internet access: We used to use Starlink at home and if I ever planned a trip with no
reliable internet access I’d reactivate starlink for weather updates if nothing else. I’ve
had no time or desire to do social media this trip, but basic comms with family, sending
daily pic and updates, and having a solid weather forecast, are truly nice. Worth a
month of starlink if you can at least have it at base camp. Plus, it's awfully nice to be able to pore over Google Earth at night when trying to plan the next day.
-Padded seat cushion. Worth the 1lb weight. Also, dig out a depression where you’re sitting to
take pressure off butt. You can get creative with seating but whether it’s a cushion or
learning to dig out an ergonomic seat at the base of a tree (depression for your butt,
support under legs), you must learn to get comfy on the ground. I knew this and was able to teach it to my daughter this trip.

Those thin stretchy pullover underwear-like shirts look goofy on a chubby guy but
they’re awesome. The hood is just enough to keep your head/face warmer without
ruining your ability to hear. They must be washed often, though.

 

[Chris in TN]

Wrangler hunting pants. $28 at Walmart. These can’t be beat for the price and I’ll buy

more of them and cannot imagine needing more expensive pants as long as you size

them to accommodate underlayers as needed. Solid bargain.





Garmin 67i: By the end of the week I had developed a great appreciation for the capability of this thing. I'd buy it again, even though we never really went 'backcountry'.





Things I do not like:

Tikka detachable magazine. Would prefer BDL style floorplate. This is probably

personal preference but I hate the idea of popping a magazine in and out because it

creates a part to lose. I was extra conscientious of being sure the magazine was

snapped into place but still don’t trust detachable magazines for low-volume firearms.





All jackets, no matter how thin/light, should have a hood, once the weather drops below

40 degrees. A fairly light jacket with a hood, and a fairly light set of pants, when combined with layers of underwear, are more than sufficient for hunting above 20 degrees. But every jacket needs a hood.





Things we did right: The storms forced us to change plans. We did so. Our new plan obviously didn't work but it beat going home. We also managed to stay positive the entire length of the season. My daughter impressed me in that regard. I believe a whole lot of elk get bumped, but not shot at, early in season, and as we saw, I think these not-shot-at elk will tend to get tired of bedding in escape cover and come back 'home' after 2-4 days to get back to better food/water. So the last day of season might be better than the first - and it's less crowded for sure. Endure those first 3 days of chaos and the end of 1st season might get better. This probably applies to 2nd season, too, in the absence of snow pressure.

 

[Chris in TN]

Things we did wrong: I applied for a tag in what CO calls a 'limited' unit/season. This was a mistake. To be clear, a chunk of our unit, as I understand it, had restricted access for a day or two after the storms, and from what the locals told me, a huge number of the hunters we saw, were people who'd planned to hunt elsewhere but couldn't get in before season, so they came to our area, and flooding in our area made these other hunters concentrate even more. The pressure I saw last week reminded me of a circus. And if you'd cut that in half I still wouldn't have enjoyed it. I don't hunt to compete with other people; I hunt to get away from other people. I flatly did not enjoy this and was deeply wrong to think a 'limited' but easier to draw first-season tag would get me away from this. I understand that a lot of public-land hunters enjoy the competition and enduring the setbacks and whatnot. I get enough of that at work. Hunting is my reward for that, my time off from it. No thanks. Never again. My time and money are too limited and I'd prefer to spend it doing more private hunts less often. I don't blame the other hunters (90% of the guys we spoke with were downright decent people, it seemed) and I know that the state of CO can't control the weather-related crowding, but when I say it was a circus, I mean it. I doubt that I ever apply for an easy to draw rifle tag in CO again for public land. Private? yes. Public? No. Bow or muzzy? Oh heck yeah. But not rifle. Bow/muzzleloader season has pressure spread out over a month, not everyone in the same 5 days, and I genuinely believe a guy could hunt the places we saw, and get into elk, even with bow pressure. But not rifle season. Rifle season reminded me of opening day of a big southern dove hunt - except there's only 1-2 really big doves. In the future I will not hunt public land in CO for elk in rifle season unless I am fortunate enough to draw a low-odds tag once CO starts allowing some random tags in units like 61/76/2. Or perhaps I might draw a cow tag in one of those units and enjoy a hunt surrounded by more elk and fewer people, but only be able to kill a cow. I'd do that. I like cow elk.

Second thing we did wrong: After reading endless posts about how hard it was just to find elk....I failed to consider that internet advice should be taken as location-specific. I am certain there are units where even finding elk is a major feat. This wasn't it. Either I'm the luckiest or best elk scouter on earth (I don't believe in luck and am old enough to be honest about my skill) or there were simply elk scattered all over this unit. I made a huge mistake in thinking that the elk I'd found might not be found by other hunters. Or, worse, with the influx of others who couldn't get to their preferred spots, the sheer luck of the draw meant that a lot of guys funneled into spots we'd found elk. I originally though I wouldn't be able to compete with other hunters near the roads. A lot of people tried to convince me to try it anyway, and I did, and in hindsight that was a mistake***. The pressure near the roads was simply beyond my comprehension, beyond my worst-case imagination that made me reluctant to consider it. It was worse than opening weekend of rifle season here on public lands near my home, and I don't even bother trying that anymore.







And, again, I'll recognize that the flooding made this worse.



Third thing: This has to be nuanced if if I try to boil this down you'll take it wrong:

I think that lower-elevation and easier-access spots tend to get the worst pressure the fastest and in this *particular* instance, going deeper might have helped. But not 'go high go deep'. Rather, stay at the lower elevations, then hike deeper from those places. I suspect that a whole lot of low-elevation elk trot another 1000 yards uphill and hunker down for 1-3 days after season opens. The problem is finding ways to hunt those spots when they're steep and thick. More on steepness later.



We didn't see our original higher-elevation spots the first 4 days of season, but driving through the area the last morning, I think I have been able to put together a few things:

Higher elevations means more horseback hunters. You can compete with a bunch of hunters down low or a smaller number of more mobile hunters (whether on horses or just really fit hikers) up high. Could we have stuck with our original camping plans? Yes. Would that have worked better? I doubt it. The trail we'd chosen to hike in on was quite do-able due to its long gentle slope but a ton of other people obviously went in on it via horses.

Through the time we were there we learned that there's not much limit to the length that we can comfortably hike a 5% slope. 10-15% is quite do-able for short stretches but once you get past 20% hiking gets HARD and this cannot be stressed enough to easterners who are contemplating their first western hunt. And if you find yourself scaling much past 30% you'll start to wonder whether you're capable of self-arresting if you fall. The steepest slope we climbed was about a 22 degree angle (per my rangefinder's inclinometer that I assume is halfway close) and that one scared us. We climbed one that might have been steeper but it was too steep to stop and try to check. We just wanted out of there. We stood on one knife-blade ridge one day and I was able to measure the slope at 35 degrees downhill. That would have been suicide.

 

[Chris in TN]

Aerial photography and e-scouting: we saw a ton, and I mean, 95% of the places we looked, of places that years ago were little meadows in the woods, but had grown up in oak brush. I have a background in forestry and I hate smokey the bear and while I appreciate the danger of fire, man, I wish the USFS would allow more burning to keep meadows as meadows, not oak brush thickets. Perhaps that's a discussion for another day. But we lost track of the little hidden meadows we tried to hunt only to find them brushed in.

Worse, we saw places where very recent (2 year old or less) aerials made me think the areas would be glassable. I've been to places in Yellowstone where post-fire landscapes stay similar for 20 years, but in the damper parts of CO, apparently plant succession happens much faster. What recently looked like a golf course from aerial photography, looked like a 5-year-old southern pine plantation (6-12' high aspens everywhere) once we got boots on the ground. Generally speaking, large primary slopes that looked glassable from the aerials, more or less were, at least on the last day we were there, because a ton of aspen leaves drop between the time we arrived and the time we left (Oct 9-Oct 20). Flatter areas seem to grow up faster, and for some reason a lot of the very small rocky looking canyons that I was eager to see and glass, weren't glassable at all. The most reliable glassing locations were meadows that had been meadows for decades (per google earth historical imagery) and, well, post-fire plant succession happens faster than I expected here. In short, temper your expectations for glassing spots. Many of them will grow up and a handful of aspen saplings can ruin the view. Also, all of the above is very elevation-dependent. Everything seems to happen much slower at higher elevations. I'll say more about that when I discuss blowdown.

Physical prep: I lost several pounds this summer and we hiked a ton in preseason. (I also lost ~6+ pounds on the actual trip). But in hindsight, no amount of low-elevation flat-land hiking can prepare you for higher elevation. We did as much as 750' of vertical up-and-back hiking one day. Actual horizontal mileage varied from 1 to maybe 3-4 miles in a day. It may well have been more but after the 2nd day I stopped keeping track and I try to underestimate if I'm not sure. But mileage doesn't matter. I still think we could have done 5 miles of 5% slope with our packs. What matters is slope. Short sections of 20%+ slope will absolutely wear you out. I'd rather hike for many miles at 5% than to add even a single 20% hill of 100' gain to a much shorter hike. Point being, get on stairs, or hike hills. And get skinny. You do not need much upper body strength to tote a pack of elk meat if you divide it into 2-3 trips. But you need a ton of leg strength to tote your own weight around, and I genuinely believe that a lot of big strong guys that shine in the gym would struggle in the hills, because it takes a lot of leg energy to tote their beautiful v-shaped upper body around. Get lean, not big, if you can. If you get lean enough you'll be big enough.

A tip I think I can offer after last week: If you want to hunt 1st rifle season public elk, get the USFS's recent timber harvest data and look for bigger clearcuts completed within NO MORE than the last 2 years, and 1 year is better. Try to find vantage points to hunt those. If it's completed 3-5 years ago, forget it; it's unglassable bedding cover and it might be full of mule deer but you won't be able to watch elk feeding it it. They may bed in it but you'll struggle to find them.

Forest service roads in this area dried amazingly fast, but were very rough afterwards.

The high point of this trip was the days we spent scouting. My daughter was speechless for days. She got pushed harder than she's ever been and handled it better than I expected in most ways and she absolutely impressed me in that regard and I think she'd turn around and go do it again this afternoon, though she did have some struggles in certain moments. I would honestly go back to the same area again and do a practice hunt, so to speak, then leave the day before season and go hunt private land somewhere. I'm not joking about that. I believe that by and large we had derived the maximum enjoyment from the area by about dark on Monday.

(My dad and I have literally done this before - leave early in case of travel issues, get to CO early, drive around or go hike on USFS land for maybe a day, then show up at our actual private land hunting spot. I would do it again, here, but for 3-4 days even). We heard bulls bugling at least daily until the day before season opened. In a unit with a higher cow-to-bull ratio I think there's absolutely a strong second rut in October, but of course the bulls go quiet when the guns start roaring.

 

[Chris in TN]

Being on elk on the 4th day of the season was cool, too. We got to watch the spike and had a hollow victory when the little herd showed up after dark. This was nowhere as good as actually harvesting a bull, but it was infinitely better than not seeing anything. I wish the bull in question had been a year younger and perhaps a hair dumber and had came out ten minutes faster, but I'm thankful for just seeing him, and being able to have the satisfaction of predicting what he would do, even if the timeframe was off by a few minutes.

Every day that we hunted, I took my day pack with sitting pads, IFAK, water, snacks, and puffys (first jackets then a blanket) for my daughter and I, plus a small piece of camo fabric so that I could throw up a few sticks in front of us and drape the cloth over it, so that we could at least move our hands a bit while sitting there, without worrying about every motion spooking something. This has worked well for me in years past on public land deer hunts and I'll continue to do so, especially with my kids along.



***I said earlier that it was a mistake to believe that I could try to compete with other near-the-road hunters based on posts made here. I want to be clear here, and this is important: That doesn't mean that advice here, or anywhere else on the internet, is bad. What it means, is that advice you get on the internet, no matter how good it might be, is almost always going to be highly dependent upon context. Every unit is different, I am sure. Every state is different. Every season is different. There are undoubtedly places and times where I could have struggled to find elk then been easily able to kill one, once they were found. I asked a glassing question here once and someone gave me the advice to glass *from* hiking trails. Where we went, that advice sounded silly, based on what I saw at lower elevations, then one of the days we went to higher elevation we saw some distant elk and suddenly it snapped into focus that advice about glassing strategies is likely very elevation-dependent. Or, that 'silly' advice was actually very good advice, but only when understood in context of elevation. The area that we hunted ranged from perhaps less than 8000' up to maybe more than 12000' and after being there a few days I think I'd break it out into three distinct though overlapping bands - there's a type of hunting available below 9500' or so, then another type from maybe 9000' to somewhere north of 10,000' then a third but distinct type of hunting available from maybe 10,000' on up to treeline and even higher. The former has a higher hunter density, the latter has fewer hunters but they're either in better shape or on horseback (or both). The former, elk will hide where it's thick. The latter, elk will hide where you can't physically reach them and you couldn't recover them unless they slid 500' downhill after you shot them. The point being, don't try to take specific advice generally.

The lowest elk we saw were 'valley floor'. The highest elk we saw were right at 11,700' based on Google Earth.

Blowdown: There are places where we went, where dead timber still stands in high volume. There are other places where it has all fell. I think decomposition (or any other aspect of plant succession) happens faster at lower elevation, due to moisture and temperature, and the few smaller spots of blowdown we encountered at low elevations weren't terrible (unless they were encountered on a steep slope, which was hard to navigate safely). But at higher elevations I saw blowdown that was still partially stuck up in the air several feet. Navigating that would have been a nightmare, which, again, is probably why we saw elk feeding in the open late in the morning up high. Humans couldn't reach them due to steep blowdowns below and nothing but sky above.

Perspective: Everything I've said here is from my own perspective. I talked to other hunters that were deeply disappointed in the hunting pressure. I talked to hunters that were happy as pigs in slop. I talked to hunters that were sad or even angry at the lack of elk sightings, even pre-season, and then we saw elk or fresh sign almost everywhere we went. We all bring a set of expectations to the woods. Mine isn't necessarily right or better than yours. I talked to one guy who shot a bull in that first-day dove-field setting and I don't think he could have been any happier had he been three miles from the next human being with Jack O'Connor guiding him. The pressure didn't bother him and he said it seemed worse than other years but he'd went home empty-handed several years and he was very happy with his bull. We all see things through our own eyes.

Strategy: Hunting lower-elevation elk in a manner similar to how you'd hunt whitetails, seems to work decently well, until they're pressured. Then, where whitetail will hunker down, elk will just LEAVE. But unless they continue to be pushed by weather or other hunters, it seems they'll return after moderate pressure. Not sure how long that might take once they've been shot at, of course. But if you just sort of bump them a bit, you can do worse than to sit tight and wait, I think. That's essentially how we ended up seeing the bull on day 4 - of course, he was feeding nocturnally just like deer will do.

Wind and thermals: We took several 2-ounce bottles of wind checker and used them to a frequency most of you would call ridiculous and I still think my bottle is over half full. But we checked the wind constantly in order to learn more about thermals and their timing and that was educational to say the least. And, again, I used mine like a three year old with a new toy and didn't empty half the bottle in 5 days. I also came to the conclusion that while wind is important, it is unlikely that you'll ever have a single setup where the wind appears to be perfect for the entire duration of your sit there. It changes and swirls constantly. And of course it follows canyons and meadows and flows more easily through openings than the woods, just like water would. I won't pretend to have mastered western winds in a week. That could take a lifetime.

I'm sure there's a ton I'm leaving out. I want to go shoot the rifle this evening and see how the scope and rings (NF/sportsmatch) handled the trip. It was 3000+ miles total with a ton of that spent on muddy roads or washboards that I often drove a bit too fast to get from spot to spot so the rifle darned sure got rattled around.

For whatever it's worth, in hindsight, my kid handled the length of the trip itself, better than I did. I won't likely do another 15-day trip again, ever, without the wife and kids. Again, that's my perspective. I know a lot of guys do months and years working or being deployed overseas. I'm a homebody. I was glad to have the scouting days but fifteen days away from home is too much.

The people on this forum have been incredibly helpful. There are three in particular that have really helped a ton, especially the one guy who drove over to help, and talked to me a lot on the phone. I won't say their names because I don't want to give away too much about where I was hunting or identify them as people for others to annoy with questions. But you know who you are, and thank you for the IMs and calls and meetings.

I'm sure there'll be more.

 

[Customweld]

Nice write up and thanks for checking back in. Those tan buggars are humbling for sure. It sounds like you were in elk pretty often, in hindsight, do you think you could have been more aggressive when you did see them? Not trying to be critical, just wondering.

 

[Chris in TN]

Nice write up and thanks for checking back in. Those tan buggars are humbling for sure. It sounds like you were in elk pretty often, in hindsight, do you think you could have been more aggressive when you did see them? Not trying to be critical, just wondering.

I know I'm verbose. I hope it helps some other easterner, if nothing else.

I think the one evening we hunted a different spot and heard a distant bugle and a closer cow, it *might* have helped to cow-call to that bugle. But that would have required dropping a lot of elevation to get closer to the source of the bugle, and doing so with the evening thermals would have been tricky. It wouldn't have hurt to try. But I still question whether that was even a real elk, because it seemed as if the real elk really shut up after the opening day barrage.


As far as being more aggressive towards other hunters......oh heck yes. There are several scenarios (at least one I didn't even mention in the wall of text above) where we could have tried to outrun/outgun other hunters. But my 13 year old girl who isn't an athlete and is most at home playing piano or violin, isn't going to win any quick-draw competitions or foot-races on distant elk, and honestly I wouldn't either. I'm not comfortable putting my kids in those situations, or even myself. Like I said, one guy shot five times. Nice guy, I talked to him, he had to run to get his shot and the elk was moving and he hit it on the 5th shot, I think, but I don't want to be in the same drainage with people lobbing lead like that.

 

[HunterGatherer]

I’m impressed by your persistence and especially in your daughter’s perseverance and the fact that you guys kept a good attitude throughout your hunt. Big crowds of other hunters can really get to you - even experienced hunters get mentally defeated by crowding. I have one piece of constructive criticism about your encounters…

“I don't think the elk saw us. I am almost positive they didn't smell us. I think they heard us squish-squishing through the mud. So first one of them barked, then another, and it was dawning on me that what we were hearing wasn't a bird, it was an alarmed cow - first one, then another distinct animal made the same sound.”


If the elk truly had only heard you and not seen or smelled you, the nervous grunt or bark you heard was merely them asking for verification that you are friendly and not a threat. Typically, if you just cow call at this time they won’t run and you can calm them down and continue to move in for a shot. If you don’t say anything to them and the barking elk continues to bark, the bull will get nervous and give the roundup bugles that you heard and move out with his ladies.
There were a few times in your hunt that I think calling could have helped. Maybe before you go on your next hunt, work on getting proficient with calling, even if it’s just cow sounds. I’m a big fan of Paul Medel’s ( Elknut ) methods. He has a lot of material out there on the net and his app is great. Check him out

 

[Aviator]

Great write up thanks for sharing.

 

[Chris in TN]

I’m impressed by your persistence and especially in your daughter’s perseverance and the fact that you guys kept a good attitude throughout your hunt. Big crowds of other hunters can really get to you - even experienced hunters get mentally defeated by crowding. I have one piece of constructive criticism about your encounters…

“I don't think the elk saw us. I am almost positive they didn't smell us. I think they heard us squish-squishing through the mud. So first one of them barked, then another, and it was dawning on me that what we were hearing wasn't a bird, it was an alarmed cow - first one, then another distinct animal made the same sound.”


If the elk truly had only heard you and not seen or smelled you, the nervous grunt or bark you heard was merely them asking for verification that you are friendly and not a threat. Typically, if you just cow call at this time they won’t run and you can calm them down and continue to move in for a shot. If you don’t say anything to them and the barking elk continues to bark, the bull will get nervous and give the roundup bugles that you heard and move out with his ladies.
There were a few times in your hunt that I think calling could have helped. Maybe before you go on your next hunt, work on getting proficient with calling, even if it’s just cow sounds. I’m a big fan of Paul Medel’s ( Elknut ) methods. He has a lot of material out there on the net and his app is great. Check him out

Thank you. I had a cow call with me and can make a halfway decent basic one-sound cow call, but my past with turkey and duck hunting has left me with a mindset of 'when in doubt, say nothing'. So it never crossed my mind to call back to them - what I really wanted to do was get out of there before they smelled us. But I absolutely see what you're saying and won't forget it because I don't think I'll forget the encounter itself anytime soon.

Is it possible that I could have cow-called and satisfied them that I wasn't a threat, without actually moving in? This was preseason and I was terrified of spooking them further.

 

[Customweld]

I know I'm verbose. I hope it helps some other easterner, if nothing else.

I think the one evening we hunted a different spot and heard a distant bugle and a closer cow, it *might* have helped to cow-call to that bugle. But that would have required dropping a lot of elevation to get closer to the source of the bugle, and doing so with the evening thermals would have been tricky. It wouldn't have hurt to try. But I still question whether that was even a real elk, because it seemed as if the real elk really shut up after the opening day barrage.


As far as being more aggressive towards other hunters......oh heck yes. There are several scenarios (at least one I didn't even mention in the wall of text above) where we could have tried to outrun/outgun other hunters. But my 13 year old girl who isn't an athlete and is most at home playing piano or violin, isn't going to win any quick-draw competitions or foot-races on distant elk, and honestly I wouldn't either. I'm not comfortable putting my kids in those situations, or even myself. Like I said, one guy shot five times. Nice guy, I talked to him, he had to run to get his shot and the elk was moving and he hit it on the 5th shot, I think, but I don't want to be in the same drainage with people lobbing lead like that.

It definitely sounds like you 2 put a helluva an effort in to it! Your daughter will remember that trip for her whole life. Even though you guys didn’t connect, those memories will get better with age!

 

[NMNomad]

I appreciate the write up. I am new to this, and it is great to hear the full story from someone who is out there ground pounding and putting in the work. Something I very much look forward to doing myself. Hats off to you and most especially your daughter. You may not have got your bull, but you created some incredible memories with your daughter, and she reassured you she was raised well and showed her grit. I hope to take my daughter out one day and do the same. Again, thanks for taking the time to share the write up of your trip.

 

[HunterGatherer]

Thank you. I had a cow call with me and can make a halfway decent basic one-sound cow call, but my past with turkey and duck hunting has left me with a mindset of 'when in doubt, say nothing'. So it never crossed my mind to call back to them - what I really wanted to do was get out of there before they smelled us. But I absolutely see what you're saying and won't forget it because I don't think I'll forget the encounter itself anytime soon.

Is it possible that I could have cow-called and satisfied them that I wasn't a threat, without actually moving in? This was preseason and I was terrified of spooking them further.

Yes, that’s also a possible play in that situation but you have to be aware of how much time you have to make a move before the wind might switch or the herd moves off or someone else moves in and shoots the bull right out from under you …
Deciding when to slow play an encounter vs when to get aggressive is really the crux of elk hunting in general.
One final option is to hit the bull with a challenge bugle or start playing like you’re a satellite trying to steal cows but those are more intermediate to advanced calling tactics that I would probably save for later.

 

[Chris in TN]

Also, I should have put this in the story somewhere:


When I was a kid we had marginal places to hunt ducks and maybe one or two days per year we'd have perfect weather and really get on ducks. One of my best memories of those days wasn't the hunt itself; it was the night after - trying to go to sleep with whistling wing sounds in my head. NYE of 1999 (y2k) was one of those nights - possibly my best day of duck hunting when we were in ducks all day long from dawn until late afternoon long after we'd killed our limits.

The night after the encounter with the elk at the pond, I lay in bed that night and the bugle echoed in my head, the way whistling wings used to. I won't soon forget that.

 

[Chris in TN]

Yes, that’s also a possible play in that situation but you have to be aware of how much time you have to make a move before the wind might switch or the herd moves off or someone else moves in and shoots the bull right out from under you …
Deciding when to slow play an encounter vs when to get aggressive is really the crux of elk hunting in general.
One final option is to hit the bull with a challenge bugle or start playing like you’re a satellite trying to steal cows but those are more intermediate to advanced calling tactics that I would probably save for later.

One of the three guys I mentioned earlier as being local and helpful with info, had also mentioned that challenge bugle tactic, and I bought a bugle tube but didn't have it with me because season wasn't open yet and I didn't think of it as being relevant before season (scared I'd try to get a bull to respond and just spook him further) and then once the crowd of people showed up I sort of forgot about calling altogether, even though I had the cow call with me every day. I'd used the lanyard to just attach it to my chest pack and it stayed there the whole time.

I appreciate the advice. Next year.....

 

[jcaud]

Great write up. No elk but sounds like you had an awesome time you’ll both remember forever.

I just got back from first season as well, with similar luck. Interesting to read that a lot of your observations mirror what I had in mind as I reflected back on the hunt!