Just got back from hunting Unit 12 for the first time. We camped near Ripple Creek Pass on road #8 intending to hunt an area with fewer trails than farther west in the unit. On the drive in last Friday we saw camps set up all along 8. Others said there will be lots of hunters here, but I've heard that before in other units and it hasn't been bad so I thought, we'll see. Well, this area was LOADED with other hunters.
My initial plan was to get in over a mile and hunt ridgetop saddles (10,500+) hoping other hunters would push elk up to us. We ran into several other hunters on our walk in and there were other hunters in a few of the saddles but no fresh elk tracks or beds in the snow. We could see tracks in the snow from other people scouting in the days prior to opening day. We didn't see any elk the first day and only heard one shot that we thought was nearby. We talked to a hunter (about 3 miles in as the crow flies) that had shot a cow in the area that morning, maybe the one shot we heard. As we hunted our way out that afternoon, we dropped down lower in elevation and found more elk tracks but none fresh and they were all heading down hill. We decided we needed to look for elk lower on day 2. My son's phone showed we had put on 11 miles the first day in the higher elevations of the area without seeing a fresh elk track.
We did find more tracks lower on day 2 but no fresh ones and they were outnumbered by hunter tracks. Any hunter we ran into said they had not seen any elk or fresh tracks either.
In the end, we did find areas with fresh sign and saw some elk but couldn't put antlers on any. These spots were farther down on the mountain than most of the others were hunting. It took a couple days to figure out a good, quick route to follow to get back off the road the 2 miles required to find fresh sign so I feel like we wasted a lot of time in the zone that didn't hold elk. Most of the other hunters pulled out of the area after the first few days because they weren't seeing any elk, even the guys that had hunted here for several years. We were pretty much by ourselves on day 5.
Even though we didn't get a bull, we had a good time and if we hunt here again, we know where to start looking and how to get there.
My initial plan was to get in over a mile and hunt ridgetop saddles (10,500+) hoping other hunters would push elk up to us. We ran into several other hunters on our walk in and there were other hunters in a few of the saddles but no fresh elk tracks or beds in the snow. We could see tracks in the snow from other people scouting in the days prior to opening day. We didn't see any elk the first day and only heard one shot that we thought was nearby. We talked to a hunter (about 3 miles in as the crow flies) that had shot a cow in the area that morning, maybe the one shot we heard. As we hunted our way out that afternoon, we dropped down lower in elevation and found more elk tracks but none fresh and they were all heading down hill. We decided we needed to look for elk lower on day 2. My son's phone showed we had put on 11 miles the first day in the higher elevations of the area without seeing a fresh elk track.
We did find more tracks lower on day 2 but no fresh ones and they were outnumbered by hunter tracks. Any hunter we ran into said they had not seen any elk or fresh tracks either.
In the end, we did find areas with fresh sign and saw some elk but couldn't put antlers on any. These spots were farther down on the mountain than most of the others were hunting. It took a couple days to figure out a good, quick route to follow to get back off the road the 2 miles required to find fresh sign so I feel like we wasted a lot of time in the zone that didn't hold elk. Most of the other hunters pulled out of the area after the first few days because they weren't seeing any elk, even the guys that had hunted here for several years. We were pretty much by ourselves on day 5.
Even though we didn't get a bull, we had a good time and if we hunt here again, we know where to start looking and how to get there.
