Planning my first elk hunt (Colorado)

xcutter

WKR
Joined
Aug 22, 2014
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1,408
Location
Connersville, IN
Hey Finch I would like to hear some of the things you wished you would of done differently. If you don't mind to share. I plan on doing the same type hunt in 2016. I'm trying to soak up all the info I can get. Thanks.
 
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Finch

Finch

WKR
Joined
Feb 12, 2014
Messages
1,300
Location
VA
I know this is a little late but here it is. It’s a little long too but I can’t tell a short story. My buddy Shannon and I got back from our first CO elk hunt a couple weeks back. We left the morning of Sept 4th and arrived to our destination (almost-I’ll explain later) late the evening of Sept 5th. We hunted every day until mid-day on Sept 12th. So we had 6 ½ days of hunting. Despite some well-deserved warnings, we decided on doing a DIY backpack hunt. We knew it would be quite an undertaking but we were up to the challenge.

The first challenge was making the roughly 28 hour drive from home here in Virginia to the Oak Creek area of CO in GMU 15. I stressed out deciding on a unit and essentially decided on GMU 15 based on a warden’s recommendation. You know, everyone says to contact the hunt planners and contact as many wardens as possible. Well, I emailed several (using the CO Hunting Atlas contact info page) and only received a couple of responses. I learned they are not as willing to help as I had previously imagined. Maybe they are too busy? Either way, I was glad to have a unit dialed in and began doing further research on that particular unit instead of several units.

We knew the exact area we needed to park the truck but we got a little turned around the evening we arrived. We drove as far as we could on the forest service road but it abruptly ended. After studying the maps a bit, we still couldn’t make sense of what we did wrong. Stopped by a camp and asked a fellow if he knew the area we were trying to get to. Long story short, he gave us bad directions and we reached a dead-end due to a narrowing road and downed trees. So we set up camp at this location and ended up staying there two nights by the truck. Sunday and Monday we ran into other hunters and told ourselves that we needed to find our intended spot and go deeper. So we packed up camp in between rain showers and made our way to the closed gate/bar that we tried to find a couple nights before. We hiked in a couple miles with our 50 lb packs and found the perfect spot on top of a ridge – about 10,400 feet.

The very next day was our one and only up close elk encounter. We had each just had lunch and had taken our boots and socks off to dry out. During this time, we both had managed to fall asleep. Shannon was the first to awake to a noise. He told me he tried waking me up by throwing sticks and eventually tossing rocks my way. It took a good tugging on my pant’s leg before I came to. His first words were, “I think I hear an elk” and I immediately heard what sounded like a bull raking a tree as soon as he said that. He told me to get setup and he would do the calling. We were on the top of a little ridge and the elk was down below. I set up near the edge with a few trees as some cover. Shannon began calling and the next thing I knew; I slightly turned my head to the left scanning the scenery and saw an elk head about 20 yards from me. She was also scanning and looking for the “elk” that had been calling. I don’t think she ever saw me but she had enough of not seeing the other “elk” and turned around and trotted off. She got about 60-70 yards away and I cow called and stopped her in her tracks but it was already too late. After several seconds, she continued on never to be seen again. This was only several hundred yards from our camp. I guess the noise we heard were her hooves hitting the deadfall.

The next few days were spent hunting all around that area and seeing fresh sign but no elk. We’d see fresh poop, tracks, and beds in the meadows. A couple evenings we sat on some meadows but saw no elk. I don’t think there was a day that we ever returned to camp mid-day. We stayed after it every day from dusk till dark. I’d bugle in camp every morning but never received a response. Despite the fresh sign, we decided to pack up camp and head deeper in after a few days in that spot. We found a great meadow with a nice looking water source smack down in the middle of it. With the warm temps, we sat on it that evening but no sightings. Our new camp was only a few hundred yards away. The next morning was probably our most exciting. This is the morning we saw the bull moose which we heard several hundred yards away before spotting it. We had actually planned on trying to get closer and call him in for the hell of it. Nothing else was going on so why not! As we started his way, we spotted him coming up the opposite side of the meadow. He came within 53 yards of us before continuing onto his destination. The whole time he was grunting which is probably the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.

Here's a video I shot of him
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUtqEgWx8rw

We scouted the new terrain that morning and saw absolutely no fresh elk sign. We came to the conclusion that we were better off in our last spot and packed up and moved camp again (3rd time). On our way down the mountain, we had a verbal encounter with an elk but it didn’t materialize either. It got our hearts pounding though. Sat back up at our old campsite #2 and hunted until the day we left.

When we made it back to the truck, we met some fellow hunters. Several were setting up a base camp with the whole nine. There were two other guys that were there that just sleep in their truck. They were gracious enough to give us a couple beers. They were probably the best tasting beers we had ever had! 

Things I would do differently

Food: I packed MH meals for dinner, 2 packs of oatmeal for breakfast, instant coffee, Snickers, Probar energy bar, turkey snack sticks, GU energy shots (nasty but I stomached them), Honey stinger waffles (pretty good), and BH sammys.
Butthole sandwiches - Yes, I love these when they are FRESH! I pre-made, vacuum sealed, and froze a week’s worth a couple days before our trip. After a few days, these are barely palatable and I threw away 3 or 4 days worth. So there’s 3 or 4 days worth of lunches (600 cals) that I no longer had. I never did get really hungry but it would have been nice to have them a couple days. I think I’d make them fresh on any future trips .

Turkey snack sticks- These got kinda nasty the last few days. Maybe I should have vacuum sealed instead of ziplocking.

Mountain House meals: I was really happy with these except for the “Grilled chicken breasts with rib meat and mashed potatoes” The chicken isn’t bad but those mashed potatoes are terrible. I really liked the Beef Stroganoff and Chili mac with beef. I’ll take more options next time with less repeats.

The Ova-Easy powdered eggs were awesome on the morning we moved camp. Almost like real eggs and bacon jerky (thanks to Shannon) was a nice side as well.

Acli-mate: This is a powder that you mix with water to prevent altitude sickness. I began taking this the day we pulled out of VA. I never got altitude sickness but did have a slight headache one night. The main thing is that this stuff TORE my stomach up. Just ask my buddy about the ride up.  My stomach was gurgling until a day or so after I stopped taking this stuff. I’ll just stick with drinking a lot of water each day like everyone else suggests.

Rain gear: It only rained one day and I still didn’t use the rain gear. The FL puffy kept my top half dry and my DWR treated pants kept me dry as well. I don’t know if I’d pack rain gear on another elk hunt. I’m wondering if a poncho would suffice. I mean, if it’s a heavy rain- how much hunting would we do anyway?

Distance traveled: We never really left camp before daylight. We felt like we were in an “elky” area and just hunted our way out of camp each morning periodically calling as we covered some distance. We covered ground during the day but always ended up closer to camp at day’s end. There was really never any having to hike a couple miles back to camp in the dark. Again, we thought we were close enough to elk (going by the sign) that we didn’t have to travel too far. We never heard any elk but knew they were using the area. We now think they were coming in well after dark. Next time we may need to cover a lot more ground .

Gearlist:
Clothing
• Lowa Tibet Boots
• Merino socks (2 pair)
• Leukotape
• Icebreaker 200 gm bottoms
• Kings Synthetic camo pants
• Eddie Bauer Genius belt
• Exo officio boxers (2 pair)
• Core4 Merino long sleeve shirt
• First Lite Chama LS
• Kings Poly SS camo shirt
• FL puffy
• Core4 Torrent Rain gear
• Merino beanie
• Ballcap
• UA gloves (thin)
• UA neck gaiter/face mask
• Gaiters
• Knockoff crocs (camp shoes)
• ¾ section of cheap blue foam pad for sitting

Pack/Binos/Electronics

• Exo Mtn 3500 pack
• Vortex Binos 8x42
• Rick Young Bino harness
• Glock 23 (holstered to pack) & full mag
• Range finder
• Camera w/ extra batteries
• Cellphone
• Charging Brick
• GPS w/ extra AA batteries
• Compass
• Maps (Nat geo and Elk Tracker)
• Headlamp w/ extra batteries
• Petzl e+Lite backup headlamp (kept in kill kit)
• Chap stick
• Backpacker trowel

Sleep System

• Marmot Couloir Gossamer Down 0 deg bag (3lb 3oz)
• Exped Synmat UL 7 LW pad (1lb 5oz) w/ patch kit
• Tarptent Double Rainbow
• Nite Ize Clip-it light (tent light)
• Tyvek groundcloth
Archery Gear

• Elite Energy E35 w/ Elite 1 pc quiver
• 6 arrows w/ BHs
• Truball Sniper release x 2 (1 kept in truck)
• Allen wrenches
• Wax
• D loop material
• Couple feet of serving

Kill Kit
• Mountain Ridge pullout
• Havalon Torch w/ extra blades
• Leatherman Wave
• Paracord (100’)
• TAG game bags x 5
• 1 roll of pink marking ribbon
• Nitrile Gloves
• Contractor bag

Food prep/cooking/water
• Katyadyn Hiker pro
• Primus Stove (piezo ignition)
• Primus Cookset
• Fuel (2)
• Sea to Summit Titanium fork
• Collapsible mug (coffee)
• Playpus 1 liter collapsible bladder (flavored drinks)
• BIC lighter wrapped in duct tape
• Small bottle of olive oil
• Salt/pepper
• Aluminum foil


Toiletries

• Toothbrush/toothpaste
• Wet wipes
• Pack towel
• Contacts and solution
• Floss pics
• Q-tips
• Deordorant
• Small amount of liquid soap

First Aid Kit

Adventure Medical Ultralight and Waterproof kit

Firestarter

• Small mountain ridge pullout
• BIC lighter (wrapped in duct tape)
• Firesticks (Vaseline cotton balls sealed in straws)
• Ferro rod
• Small piece of fatwood


Food

• Mountain House meals x 8
• BH sandwiches
• Turkey snack sticks
• Ova-Easy egg mix
• Oatmeal
• Instant coffee packets
• Stinger Waffles
• Snickers
• Cliff Bars
• Energy gel
• Flavor packets for water (acli-mate)
• Probar Protein bar


I’m really happy with my gear list. I had everything I needed and never really wanted anything. Well, a chair would have been nice but that would have been another couple pounds. We made the best of rocks as chairs though.

I’m happy with my tent (Double rainbow by Tarptent), 0 deg bag, & Exped pad. It wasn’t really that cold while we were there. The temps were mid 30’s to 60’s. The exo 3500 surprised me in how much gear I was able to pack. It was tight but I got a week’s worth of gear and food in there.

The katadyn hiker pro was a great filter. I added quick disconnects on my water bladder and filtering water was pretty easy. My buddy had the Sawyer squeeze me but only used it one time. We used mine thereafter since it was quicker. No complaints.

I know everyone raves about First Lite and I have a few of their items. BUT I really loved my King’s XKG Ridge Pants. These are a performance cut, 4 way stretch, DWR treated pants. I especially like them because I got them for half off on Amazon.

My Advice:
I’m a newbie but I feel like I could offer some advice to others that may be in my shoes. If you’re planning a hunt, obviously try to plan as far out as possible. I’ve been planning this hunt for a couple years and the time really flew by. Also, it’s a lot easier on the wallet if you can space out the gear purchases over time.

Speaking of gear, research what you want and make a list. That way when someone decides to sell their used gear, you can snatch it up with no regret. I bought my pack, sleeping bag, pad, tent, and a few other things used. I also saved money on new items. I only paid $250 for my Lowa Tibet boots. Amazon is your friend and use the wish list feature.

As far as the hunt is concerned….don’t get overly discouraged. Honestly, I was discouraged the first full day. Don’t ask me why this happened so early but thankfully my buddy kept my head in the game. I got a lot more positive mid week and I was a different peson and I think helped keep my buddy’s spirits high as he was beginning to question the hunt. At one point in time I thought this hunt was something I could do myself but I quickly learned it would have been damn near impossible without him. Everything from the drive out there to just having someone to talk to.

Hope this wasn’t too long and maybe it will help someone. It’s funny because the last couple days of our trip we were telling ourselves that we didn’t want to do this again for a while. Well, planning another elk hunt is all we’ve been talking about here lately. We might not have been on the elk during this trip but we discovered that we could do something out of our comfort zone. We’ll definitely be back!
 
Last edited:
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Finch

Finch

WKR
Joined
Feb 12, 2014
Messages
1,300
Location
VA




Shannon looking for a leak in his pad.




Shannon taking a break.


Pic of me while we were moving to camp #3
 

DWinVA

WKR
Joined
Jun 17, 2014
Messages
591
Location
SW Virginia
Great report and pictures. So glad you guys had a great trip.

We are looking forward to our first DYI elk hunt next year. The area we hunted (Unit 42) didn't having any nice flat meadows like the one in your picture.

God Bless.
 
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Finch

Finch

WKR
Joined
Feb 12, 2014
Messages
1,300
Location
VA
Great report and pictures. So glad you guys had a great trip.

We are looking forward to our first DYI elk hunt next year. The area we hunted (Unit 42) didn't having any nice flat meadows like the one in your picture.

God Bless.

Thanks man! We encountered several meadows in the area we were hunting. Every time we came onto one we expected to see elk out there feeding or bedded or something. Never did but the sign was there. Are you guys going to hunt a different part of the state next year?
 

DWinVA

WKR
Joined
Jun 17, 2014
Messages
591
Location
SW Virginia
We may hunt the same area. Good looking country and didn't appear to have a lot of archery hunting pressure. How about you?

God Bless.
 

drrice

Lil-Rokslider
Joined
Aug 26, 2013
Messages
133
Location
South Dakota
Sounds a lot like our first elk hunt this year even down to the bull moose. We also saw a lot of sign (seemed like every thick batch of trees we would walk through) but when they are not talking I thought it was really hard to decide which direction to go everyday.
 

Disco14

Lil-Rokslider
Joined
Mar 11, 2014
Messages
266
Donnie- awesome write up. I've been following this thread all year. Think how far you have come over this year and I'm sure you'll be re- living all the experiences ( good & bad ) for a long time. I've been out west for elk 3 times and can't wait to get back out there next year. Wish u the best during this hunting season in VA.
 
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