Colorado bull elk GMU 22

[eagle eye]

Your screwed. If you can find a 20 acre area in that unit on public land that has less traffic than 3 hunters per hour you will be far above the curve.

Better, worse, or just as bad during archery? I'm going to assume most people never leave their trucks with all the roads in the unit?

 

[Wyoming270]

Better, worse, or just as bad during archery? I'm going to assume most people never leave their trucks with all the roads in the unit?

Archery season always ends up being 900% worse than any other season. We have 6 month otc resident ridle elk tags here in wyoming in some areas. I reference this because i do end up hunting elk 6 months out of the year. August i rarely see anyone. September is archery season, the 6 month rifle season continues through it. After midnoctober it is rare to ever see another hunter till the end of January. In the places i hunt, i typically see 3x more people the first and last weekend of september archery season, than i do the other 5 months put together. Im not anti archery, im actually quite active in it. But someone its become a tv show driven fad where people hit the scheels, get the store credit card, drop 5k, then walk through all the elk bedding areas, tell me theres no elk, then sell all their new crap on facebook marketplace as used once. i once shot an elk 20 minutes after the 3rd of 3 groups walked past me on their way out at 9 am, they stopped to tell me how there are not any elk because they walked everywhere and never saw them. seems to be a common mindset during archery season in the west. hunting seasons with the largest time ammount deffinitely i hunt from sunrise to sunset every day i go out big game hunting. See lots of late morning/ early afternoon activity when they get hungry and get up to snack. Lot less hunting and calling pressure then as well.

As far as roads, it doesnt make it better. most people wont leave the atv in western hunting. However, in elk season there will be a parade of 30 or 40 atvs that hit the circuit of stopping every 200 yards to bugle 10 or 20 times mid day from their atv. This makes the elk really non responsive to calling during daylight. aside from that i dont find roads make much of a difference. I find big herds 3 miles from the nearest forest service road, and i find big herds walking down county roads on their way to the next barn yard hay stack.

Im not anti colorado but it is so crowded any outdoor adventure there is like waiting in the lines at disney world. Even the wilderness areas get hammered. Only place ive ever seen 600 people all hunting the same 200 acres.

 

[DIY HUNTER]

Every time I end up down in CO I always wonder why we are just gluttons for punishment!! Last time we were there, we were packing meat out and saw a group of 8 bow hunters in one party about 1/2 mile from trailhead just beat…. None of which looked to remotely be in shape. We do usually end up getting into elk/deer so I guess that why we go back from time to time. You can throw all those elk calling and you tube wanna be tutorials out the window…. Just get away from the masses and remember persistence pays off!

 

[Paul from Colorado]

my brothers and I are looking into our first out of state bull elk hunt and was going to focus on the OTC bull elk tag in unit 22 in Colorado. I am curious to know the elk population out there before heading out. I was looking up Piceance Creek Road was a good spot to start and of course getting off the roads and hiking back away from everything which we are not afraid to do. Never been elk hunting in Colorado and it sounds like something we’d enjoy doing. Any input would help

If you can get west of the burned areas you will find elk, a large portion of the herd were pushed east into other units as crews and aircraft fought the fires. These elk have stayed out of unit 22 so far, it was a very big fire.