Hatchie Dawg
Well-known member
Thread over on Rokslide discussing a relative low harvest success rate or total harvest maybe, in CO last year vs the past 12 seasons. Various comments there as to why. Any thoughts here?
CO Elk Harvest
- Thread starter Hatchie Dawg
- Start date
HighDesertSage
Well-known member
Honestly I have seen first hand how the 1st rifle season can initiate a mass migration to private land. Opening morning last year the elk were still bugling. By noon the second day every elk had shut up and left the drainage we were in. We couldn't find an elk the rest of the season. It seems to me that if you don't fill your tag the first 2 days of first rifle, you're screwed. I'm not saying every elk leaves, but the majority do. This brings up a very good point though, and something I have often pondered, what if CPW managed the elk like they do the mule deer? I have hunted mulies all over the west, and Colorado wins hands down for quantity and quality. Our public land opportunities for mule deer are second to none. I often wonder how much of an elk powerhouse Colorado would be if they followed the same management strategy. Unfortunately, I am fairly certain this will never happen because of the financial strain it would cause. I'm sure the amount of revenue CPW generates by OTC elk tags is invaluable to their budget. However, as a resident here that rifle hunts, I will say that there are entirely to many hunters in the woods during the 1st and 2nd rifle seasons. 3rd and 4th are not too bad, but as I stated above the majority of the animals are on private at this point due mostly to pressure, and occasionally weather.
Last edited:
putm2sleep
New member
What the tone said.
2. CPW are crooks and utilize this data / crap to say
'We need more PLO tags! '
I'd say there is more orange running all over on quads on BLM -state and national forest lands
Then ever before scaring off the elk. Making them Less
Successful.
2a. Dudes on the rockslide can't hunt?
3. If the number in an elk herd increases from 200k to
300k and success rates are flat / equal, does your number
Drop?! Less success? No.
4 maybe some slick rick is trying to figure out where
Successful guys hunt and then apply there??!
-
Simply put - there are the pros and there are the
Idontknows!
2. CPW are crooks and utilize this data / crap to say
'We need more PLO tags! '
I'd say there is more orange running all over on quads on BLM -state and national forest lands
Then ever before scaring off the elk. Making them Less
Successful.
2a. Dudes on the rockslide can't hunt?
3. If the number in an elk herd increases from 200k to
300k and success rates are flat / equal, does your number
Drop?! Less success? No.
4 maybe some slick rick is trying to figure out where
Successful guys hunt and then apply there??!
-
Simply put - there are the pros and there are the
Idontknows!
Last edited:
Interesting. I will be back in CO this year, hunting OTC in a 3rd season. Only one time did I go there and not have a chance to kill a bull, but did not give it much effort since I was carrying a good 3rd season deer tag. On those CO hunts, sometimes the bull died, sometimes we hit a tree, sometimes filming light and shooting lanes were not good for cameras. I hunt all over the west for elk and I have yet to see a place where it is as easy to find elk as it is in Western CO.
Part of the reason for low success has to do with the expectations of people. I think many of the people who come to CO are not prepared for the work it will take to get an animal back to the truck. The example below is a regular occurrence in the places I have hunted in CO.
I had a mule deer tag outside Carbondale a few years back. I was standing at the crest of a ridge where you could drive up to a trailhead. In my spotter I had four different legal bulls scattered in pockets across the face of a mountain. Every truck that drove up asked if I was seeing any elk. I showed each of the three hunting groups the elk in my spotter. Not a single guy would go after any of them. None of the bulls were more than an hour hike and the retrieval would have been all downhill, with the aid of snow.
I am at a loss for what these folks were looking for. If I had an elk tag on that hunt, I would have been on the trot to get over there and fill it. None of these groups were residents, so I know they had spent significant time and money in hopes of killing an elk. Now that they had one to kill, they wouldn't go do it. Most of them pondered how they would get it out of there. I would not have been too tough, as they had multiple people in their hunting groups and these elk were less than a mile from a road.
Every day on that five-day deer hunt, I could have killed a bull in this OTC unit. We were focused on filming a deer hunt, so we did not even screw with elk tags. I pointed out some other bulls to hunters on other days, with the same end result.
That experience, along with similar experiences in other parts of the state lead me to conclude the reason most people do not fill a tag in Colorado is that they are not ready for what effort it takes to kill a bull elk on public land. Those who have the proper expectation are pretty successful. Others, not so much.
Finding elk, including legal bulls, in Colorado is easier than any general/OTC hunt I have found in all of the elk country I travel. Now that I have said that, I will probably hit a tropical weather streak in early November that allows the bulls to live at 14,000' and are seeking shade in the dark timbered faces.
I prefer to hunt the 3rd season. Bulls have sanctuary spots that are pretty predictable, just by looking at the map. By 3rd season, the pressure of the archery, muzzy, 1st and 2nd seasons have pushed the bulls to these very predictable locations. With a spotter at dawn or dusk, you will probably see them up and feeding. They will stay there every day until disturbed. Once you find those spots, go and "disturb" them.
Part of the reason for low success has to do with the expectations of people. I think many of the people who come to CO are not prepared for the work it will take to get an animal back to the truck. The example below is a regular occurrence in the places I have hunted in CO.
I had a mule deer tag outside Carbondale a few years back. I was standing at the crest of a ridge where you could drive up to a trailhead. In my spotter I had four different legal bulls scattered in pockets across the face of a mountain. Every truck that drove up asked if I was seeing any elk. I showed each of the three hunting groups the elk in my spotter. Not a single guy would go after any of them. None of the bulls were more than an hour hike and the retrieval would have been all downhill, with the aid of snow.
I am at a loss for what these folks were looking for. If I had an elk tag on that hunt, I would have been on the trot to get over there and fill it. None of these groups were residents, so I know they had spent significant time and money in hopes of killing an elk. Now that they had one to kill, they wouldn't go do it. Most of them pondered how they would get it out of there. I would not have been too tough, as they had multiple people in their hunting groups and these elk were less than a mile from a road.
Every day on that five-day deer hunt, I could have killed a bull in this OTC unit. We were focused on filming a deer hunt, so we did not even screw with elk tags. I pointed out some other bulls to hunters on other days, with the same end result.
That experience, along with similar experiences in other parts of the state lead me to conclude the reason most people do not fill a tag in Colorado is that they are not ready for what effort it takes to kill a bull elk on public land. Those who have the proper expectation are pretty successful. Others, not so much.
Finding elk, including legal bulls, in Colorado is easier than any general/OTC hunt I have found in all of the elk country I travel. Now that I have said that, I will probably hit a tropical weather streak in early November that allows the bulls to live at 14,000' and are seeking shade in the dark timbered faces.
I prefer to hunt the 3rd season. Bulls have sanctuary spots that are pretty predictable, just by looking at the map. By 3rd season, the pressure of the archery, muzzy, 1st and 2nd seasons have pushed the bulls to these very predictable locations. With a spotter at dawn or dusk, you will probably see them up and feeding. They will stay there every day until disturbed. Once you find those spots, go and "disturb" them.
I too have found this. I once pointed out 2 six point bulls in the Jarbidge wilderness to a couple of hunters and they said there was no way they would pack one of those out from where they were.
I have found over the years that there a lot of lazy hunters and those same hunters complain there in no game to be had here in NV.
I have found over the years that there a lot of lazy hunters and those same hunters complain there in no game to be had here in NV.
Randy, let me know when you draw another deer tag and pass on all the bulls.I'm dumb enough to chase a bull pretty much anywhere
I hunted Co 4x and never saw another hunter in the woods hunting.I did see a few walking trails and riding 4 wheelers around,but none of which I'd actually call hunting.Found exact same type hunters in Wy too.When I went to Mt I was in shock when guys were passing my camp and I was a couple miles in.Never saw that before.It wasn't many guys but it still surprised me after hunting in Co and Wy
I hunted Co 4x and never saw another hunter in the woods hunting.I did see a few walking trails and riding 4 wheelers around,but none of which I'd actually call hunting.Found exact same type hunters in Wy too.When I went to Mt I was in shock when guys were passing my camp and I was a couple miles in.Never saw that before.It wasn't many guys but it still surprised me after hunting in Co and Wy
Thanks for that very succinct response Randy. This will be my first year hunting elk and hopefully deer in CO and have mixed feelings about the quality of the hunt. I know there are a lot of elk and I know there are a lot of hunters. It certainly will be an exciting experience. If you'd like to find a few bulls for me I'd happily go and try to disturb them!
jryoung
Well-known member
If I'm out hunting and someone shows me a legal bull, I'd do three things.
1. Ask if he/she was going to go after them and if not ask if they minded if I did.
2. Kiss them on the cheek.
3. Strap my pack on and get moving.
1. Ask if he/she was going to go after them and if not ask if they minded if I did.
2. Kiss them on the cheek.
3. Strap my pack on and get moving.
This is me pointing to the spot where the Colorado bulls were bedded. Picture cropped heavily from the right, to remove a very recognizable spot. Don't want Dinkshooter sending his mafia boys to remove my pearly whites.
I'm laughing to the camera guys that nobody would drive off this ridge and climb up the opposing ridges to shoot one of those bulls bedded on the closest faces. At the time of this photo I had dialed the scope back to low power and all the bulls were in the FOV. The crew of four Michiganders had just left and remarked how someone would be out of his mind to shoot anything in that location, let alone something as big as an elk.
In those five days of deer hunting, I spotted eight legal bulls scattered across the public lands shown in this screen shot. One was a very nice 6-point that I would be very happy to shoot on any OTC unit. The others were 5-points or raghorns. I look for places like this map shows.
I spent years making elk hunting a very complicated endeavor. Doing the TV show has forced me to simplify and not over-think it. I have five days to sort it out, figure it out, and hopefully pack one out. Now that I've simplified, I see a lot more elk in late rifle hunts.
I go by this "Golden Rule of Elk Hunting," at least the way I elk hunt elk - Where hunters are, elk aren't.
Elk avoid hunters. It's really that simple. They survive by learning to avoid hunters. Those elk that don't learn the skill get taken out of the gene pool rather quickly. They avoid hunters by heading to places with low hunting pressure. In the west, you find low hunting pressure on public land in two ways.
First is terrain that makes most people contemplate the effort required and they then decide they don't want an elk quite that bad. Elk know small spots where they can make a living and get through season. They use these same spots year after year. It might be a small bench that interrupts a bunch of contour lines. It is most likely going to be two miles from the nearest motors. And it is probably going to have a nasty chunk of terrain or timber nearby so they can make a quick exit.
Second, elk go to places with a lot of private that is hard to navigate. Show me a place with a public-private complication, and that is where I am going to look first. I will look there even before I look in places where terrain might concentrate bulls. These elk are usually less disturbed, most often an older age class because of the protection private lands provide them each hunting seasons and quite often is much easier terrain, even if the distance required is double or triple.
This map has some of both. The places I find elk on public land look a lot like this map. Most people don't want to screw with the access complications or make big loops to get around the private pieces to where the elk are hanging out on public.
Bulls are way different than cows this time of year. Finding cows is pretty easy. But, if you are hunting bulls, cows don't do you much good, unless one straggler raghorn is still running with the crew. Bulls will be higher up the ridges. Bulls will be in areas that don't require a lot of food or water. They want to stay alive, even if it means being hungry. If I am finding cows in a late season hunt (Nov-Dec), I look higher up the mountain for bulls.
A lot of times I am glassing for tracks in the snow. I don't want a big herd of tracks. Those are cows and calves. I'm looking for a string of 2-5 sets of tracks. And I'm not looking for tracks that are lined out like they are headed to Mexico for winter. I look for those couple sets of tracks that are milling around and looking for feed. Those elk are somewhere nearby. I might not see them that day. If I come back for two or three days and I am on the glass at the low light hours, odds are I will find the bulls that made those tracks.
Whether it is terrain or distance, it really comes down to the fact that most hunters don't want to spend a day or two retrieving an elk. If you think about it, what else did you plan to do for the next day or two? Seems the end goal is to get the chance to spend a couple days packing out an elk.
I copied and pasted the above text from a couple paragraphs in the book we are writing. The publisher thinks it will be ready in Jan/Feb. In addition to the normal stuff you read on Hunt Talk, there are going to be five small sidebar segments. They might be short chapters. They are titled, "The best public land elk hunters you've never heard of."
Right now, three Hunt Talkers have agreed to be interviewed. I am taking recommendations for a couple more guys who are public land elk killers; people who fly under the big publicity radar and probably forget more about public land elk hunting each morning over coffee than I will ever know in my life.
If you have names of some great "under the public radar" elk hunters I should interview, or questions you want me to ask them, let me know.
I'm laughing to the camera guys that nobody would drive off this ridge and climb up the opposing ridges to shoot one of those bulls bedded on the closest faces. At the time of this photo I had dialed the scope back to low power and all the bulls were in the FOV. The crew of four Michiganders had just left and remarked how someone would be out of his mind to shoot anything in that location, let alone something as big as an elk.
In those five days of deer hunting, I spotted eight legal bulls scattered across the public lands shown in this screen shot. One was a very nice 6-point that I would be very happy to shoot on any OTC unit. The others were 5-points or raghorns. I look for places like this map shows.
I spent years making elk hunting a very complicated endeavor. Doing the TV show has forced me to simplify and not over-think it. I have five days to sort it out, figure it out, and hopefully pack one out. Now that I've simplified, I see a lot more elk in late rifle hunts.
I go by this "Golden Rule of Elk Hunting," at least the way I elk hunt elk - Where hunters are, elk aren't.
Elk avoid hunters. It's really that simple. They survive by learning to avoid hunters. Those elk that don't learn the skill get taken out of the gene pool rather quickly. They avoid hunters by heading to places with low hunting pressure. In the west, you find low hunting pressure on public land in two ways.
First is terrain that makes most people contemplate the effort required and they then decide they don't want an elk quite that bad. Elk know small spots where they can make a living and get through season. They use these same spots year after year. It might be a small bench that interrupts a bunch of contour lines. It is most likely going to be two miles from the nearest motors. And it is probably going to have a nasty chunk of terrain or timber nearby so they can make a quick exit.
Second, elk go to places with a lot of private that is hard to navigate. Show me a place with a public-private complication, and that is where I am going to look first. I will look there even before I look in places where terrain might concentrate bulls. These elk are usually less disturbed, most often an older age class because of the protection private lands provide them each hunting seasons and quite often is much easier terrain, even if the distance required is double or triple.
This map has some of both. The places I find elk on public land look a lot like this map. Most people don't want to screw with the access complications or make big loops to get around the private pieces to where the elk are hanging out on public.
Bulls are way different than cows this time of year. Finding cows is pretty easy. But, if you are hunting bulls, cows don't do you much good, unless one straggler raghorn is still running with the crew. Bulls will be higher up the ridges. Bulls will be in areas that don't require a lot of food or water. They want to stay alive, even if it means being hungry. If I am finding cows in a late season hunt (Nov-Dec), I look higher up the mountain for bulls.
A lot of times I am glassing for tracks in the snow. I don't want a big herd of tracks. Those are cows and calves. I'm looking for a string of 2-5 sets of tracks. And I'm not looking for tracks that are lined out like they are headed to Mexico for winter. I look for those couple sets of tracks that are milling around and looking for feed. Those elk are somewhere nearby. I might not see them that day. If I come back for two or three days and I am on the glass at the low light hours, odds are I will find the bulls that made those tracks.
Whether it is terrain or distance, it really comes down to the fact that most hunters don't want to spend a day or two retrieving an elk. If you think about it, what else did you plan to do for the next day or two? Seems the end goal is to get the chance to spend a couple days packing out an elk.
I copied and pasted the above text from a couple paragraphs in the book we are writing. The publisher thinks it will be ready in Jan/Feb. In addition to the normal stuff you read on Hunt Talk, there are going to be five small sidebar segments. They might be short chapters. They are titled, "The best public land elk hunters you've never heard of."
Right now, three Hunt Talkers have agreed to be interviewed. I am taking recommendations for a couple more guys who are public land elk killers; people who fly under the big publicity radar and probably forget more about public land elk hunting each morning over coffee than I will ever know in my life.
If you have names of some great "under the public radar" elk hunters I should interview, or questions you want me to ask them, let me know.
recon6036
Well-known member
I'm not one of those lazy Michiganders Randy.......show me the elk and I'll go after them!
jryoung
Well-known member
One of my favorite complaints is "Damn Feds gaiting all the roads there no access... (pause)...there's too many road hunters, it's like a pumpkin patch out here"
Well which do you want?
Well which do you want?
sbhooper
Well-known member
Closed roads are the best thing there is for good elk hunting.
Great posts, Randy. I will have to say that I was absolutely amazed this year while hunting cow elk in northern Wyoming. There were a lot of hunters (and some happened to be from Michigan) that were working extremely hard to get to plain ole cows. I was impressed and met some great guys two miles from the truck. It was definitely out of the norm for most hunts in rugged country, though.
JohnCushman
Well-known member
The reason the harvest rate is down where I hunt them is because I can't seem to connect on a bull with my bow. I guess this whole CSEH this has me so worked up I can't concentrate and get the job done 
Or maybe it's the prickers and cactus sticking me through my flip flops :hump:
Or maybe it's the prickers and cactus sticking me through my flip flops :hump:
Gunner46
Well-known member
The same holds true in the east. It's numbing how many guys whine about not seeing any good bucks, but will look at you as if you're insane for even suggesting that they strap on some chest waders and slosh through a 50 yd stretch of swamp water to reach an island. Heck, we already had the stand in place, and the trailed taped. All they had to do was climb in it ! Nope, nope nope.....ain't gonna get out in that mess.
Good info there Randy. Not many hunters take the time to learn about elk. After I put an elk in my freezer every year, I get the same thing. "You sure are lucky". It's the guys that rely on luck that throw away tags. mtmuley
Duck-Slayer
Well-known member
Great post Randy, I believe you are correct.... along with a couple other posts.... our society has gotten very very lazy, at least my generation has, video games and McDonalds is why nobody wants too leave the 2 track or 4-wheeler.... incompetence .....
Matt
Matt
