Low Density, High Hopes

[trb]

In May, I was notified that I had beaten the odds and drawn a limited late season bull tag. I would be the only non-resident tag holder. Although I have held a couple good limited tags before, they have always been reissued mid season, such as last year’s mountain goat hunt. This was unquestionably the best tag I’ve ever drawn. The reason I point this out, is that one of the things I enjoy most about hunting is the months-long anticipation, which in turn inspires learning about the finer details of an often new area. This hunt would consume the background of my thoughts for many months.

Although in my 20s I spent a significant amount of time working the river systems of this state, including living there briefly, this was a specific area I had only ever passed through. I have been applying for it for a few years because of the appeal of exploring it, and the season’s line up with my Thanksgiving break from school/work. However, I didn’t anticipate drawing it for another decade, so I was going into the summer pretty blind. What I did know of the area was that (unlike Colorado) neither private land elk sanctuaries nor competing hunting pressure would have any influence on my ability to get the most out of the tag. It was simply a matter of learning the area well enough to find elk, and then, getting close.

I returned my Colorado bull tag to focus on this hunt, and filled the rest of my calendar with brief trips tagging along on others’ hunts, with this tag being my singular focus of the year for myself. No pressure…

Stick with me…it might take me a day or two to wrap this up.

 

[fishing4sanity]

Hope that's not your blood, but either way it looks like we have an interesting story incoming. I hope your typing skills are much faster than mine.

 

[CowboyLeroy]

You have our attention

 

[rjthehunter]

Here for it!!!

 

[Potsie]

Cut to the stickers!!!

 

[trb]

Scouting

Eager to get there and bridge the gap between e-scouting and the real world, I wrangled a good friend to join me on a 3 day scouting trip in June shortly after my spring bear hunt. Here is a photo summary of our brief but very enjoyable trip.






Awesome reptiles


About stepped on this fawn




Sego lilly




Swallowtail on Penstemon



Bear tracks

Columbine

Although this unit is over 300 square miles, and we put quite a few miles on our boots and my truck, all the elk (4 bulls in 3 days) we saw were within about 3 miles of each other. In the summer, this is low density elk country on the edge of high density elk mecca. In the later season, their dispersal can be notoriously challenging to pattern. Without revealing too much, I’ll say that there was some shocking terrain that I saw evidence of, and was told on good authority, held elk year round. It was great to put eyes on a lot of country I had only previously looked at on maps. I learned a ton about the access points to the copious public land at my fingertips. It also gave me a good reference for elk maturity/growth that otherwise would only have been theoretical.




The most valuable aspect of my trip was the contact I made with the area’s biologist, as well as a local land management agency contact. Both were extremely generous with their time and helpful with their insight. It’s priceless to be able to have local stewards of our public lands offer their expertise before an unfamiliar undertaking such as this, and I remain extremely grateful to them both.

 

[trb]

The In Between

Some summer recreating




A buddy’s fruitless, wet, but fun, muzzleloader elk hunt


A double top secret goat hunt



Normalizing the sourcing of our nightly dinner fare, our first family hunt


Helping a friend on his first big game hunt

 

[trb]

The Hunt

Back in my day, when my teacher slapped a movie in the VCR for the class, we were stoked. Seems like kids these days consume so much media that the “class movie” has lost its luster. Damn kids. Anyway, 2 hours later, after my class had nearly knocked the door off its hinges for Thanksgiving break, I hit the road.

After a season filled with amazing time in the mountains and with friends, I was thoroughly ready for a week alone. I had 9 days blocked off and I was excited to try and make my unusual luxury of time count.

I made it about 7 hours before pulling off on some BLM road for a few hours of sleep. I finished the drive in the morning, albeit a bit delayed pushing through some icy conditions leftover from the preceding week’s storm. I gassed up in town, and suddenly, finally, and thankfully I was hunting.

 

[trb]

Day 1

Due to the road delays, I hit the parking area of my first spot shortly after sunrise. One of the eccentricities of this unit that took some adjusting to is that glassing vantages were either enormous with long distance glassing into thicker cover, or lower vantages with immediate closer range opportunity. Not a lot in between. This was one of the latter as I wanted to get hunting ASAP. All looked good, but nothing was seen. My main takeaway from stepping foot in the unit for the first time since June was that I appreciated the recent snow coverage both for the tracking, and more importantly how quiet its melting had made the ground. This would prove critical later on.



I left after a couple hours to set up camp for the week. I drove some roads to check their conditions (muddy), and finally settled on a private pull off for an old corral on the edge of a sage brush meadow.


With an uncertain forecast for the next day, I decided to head uphill to an area I was concerned might not be accessible if the roads got worse. Although I saw nothing that evening either, I couldn’t completely write the area off for two reasons. First I could hear hound/lion hunters in the area that I assumed would keep elk in cover, and second, I found couple day old sign in the mud and snow that elevated this area to the top of my list.




A promising end to day one. But mostly, I was just thrilled to finally be hunting.

 

[rtraverdavis]

Even though I already know the ending to this one, I look forward to trb hunt recaps generally more than any others. Keep it coming…

 

[trb]

Day 2



The next morning I had decided to hike from my camp over the ridge behind me to hopefully overlook a more open face with an old timber harvested slope, as well as some creek bottom that was disconnected from the main road system by a couple small patches of private. I worked up the finger ridge pretty slowly through light rain at first light as I was cognizant of the fact that this hunt felt like it had nearly as much potential to run into a bull at close range hiking as it did glassing one up. I got in position, the slope looked great, I found some deer, but after a few minutes a SxS came putting down the bottom of the drainage, hit the private, and turned around and headed back. Technically the road was closed, but there was no signage. This was the only other hunter I saw, and knowing how few there were, it didn’t really bother me. Lots of public land for everyone.



Again though, tough break because it meant I couldn’t really read too much into not seeing anything. I’ve found that when hunting new areas, eliminating terrain is sometimes as valuable as finding good spots. After 3 hours or so I headed back to camp. Around midday I headed out for what I had identified on GE as the most formidable vantage in the area. I was glad to try this as an evening glassing session because I wasn’t real keen on picking my way through the cliffs for the first time in the dark.



Along the way it was cool to pop into these little sandy oases of ponderosa and manzanita, among which I did see some few day old elk tracks.



At the knob, although I don’t have it fully pictured here, there was a huge valley floor vista in front of me, with little pockets of sagey creek bottoms, the openings to all of which I could now see. These are where I anticipated a bull sneaking out of the PJs to feed at last light. Behind me, a nice meadow with pondos on each side surrounded by an ocean of piñons. I felt like I was in the game to find elk all the way to last light. The downside was the glassing vantage was so huge I felt confident that I was missing animals. Unfortunately, I saw nothing but a few deer on either side. Onto the next spot on the list.

 

[trb]

Day 3


A short drive put me into an area that I had spent a good bit of time exploring in June. It looks like perfect elk habitat, but they seem to use it more inconsistently than I’d expect. By this point the snow was in the thaw and freeze cycle that made the snow extremely crunchy in the mornings. The glassing was limited, and I saw nothing this morning. The main takeaway was some bull tracks mixed in with hound hunter tracks that led me to eliminate this specific area for at least a couple days. But at least I had further confirmation there were bulls around.



Leaving this spot with lots of time to relocate for the afternoon, I explored a couple more spots right off the main road that looked good, but I confirmed were nearly completely unglassable. I looped around to the other side of the unit.



A tried and true plan since high school, when in doubt, get high. A snowy, deadfally, climb led to an excellent vantage. I was sure I was probably looking over elk given the vastness of the terrain before me, but again, all I saw was deer.



My selfie rate has increased exponentially since having a daughter


Deer still up high, shouldn’t elk be too?

I also saw 0 elk sign, which led me to want to get back into the freshest sign I had seen the next day.

This was my first big game hunt that had the luxury of a heating element, prettttty, pretttty, pretttty good.

 

[WNC2500]

Day 3

View attachment 394330
A short drive put me into an area that I had spent a good bit of time exploring in June. It looks like perfect elk habitat, but they seem to use it more inconsistently than I’d expect. By this point the snow was in the thaw and freeze cycle that made the snow extremely crunchy in the mornings. The glassing was limited, and I saw nothing this morning. The main takeaway was some bull tracks mixed in with hound hunter tracks that led me to eliminate this specific area for at least a couple days. But at least I had further confirmation there were bulls around.

View attachment 394331

Leaving this spot with lots of time to relocate for the afternoon, I explored a couple more spots right off the main road that looked good, but I confirmed were nearly completely unglassable. I looped around to the other side of the unit.

View attachment 394332

A tried and true plan since high school, when in doubt, get high. A snowy, deadfally, climb led to an excellent vantage. I was sure I was probably looking over elk given the vastness of the terrain before me, but again, all I saw was deer.

View attachment 394333

My selfie rate has increased exponentially since having a daughter
View attachment 394334

Deer still up high, shouldn’t elk be too?
View attachment 394335
I also saw 0 elk sign, which led me to want to get back into the freshest sign I had seen the next day.

This was my first big game hunt that had the luxury of a heating element, prettttty, pretttty, pretttty good.
View attachment 394336

Great photos. Thanks for sharing. Enjoying following along.

 

[trb]

Day 4 - Morning


I had decided to get back to my night 1 area and lay eyes on the elk that had walked through the saddle I was glassing from. I chose a vantage I had not identified e-scouting, up a road in the next unit over glassing back onto some old burnt slopes in my unit that I couldn’t see from my previous vantage.

I felt good about my choice as soon as I set up. Some spots are just perfect for sunrise with wide E facing slopes, and this was one of them. About sunrise, I spotted two yellow shapes on a flat bench above a creek bottom just into my unit. Finally!



I didn’t perceive either as bulls I was interested in stalking at this point in the hunt, but I was elated to finally find elk. A few minutes later, determined to not get tunnel vision on these bulls, I continued scanning the open slopes before me, stretching about a mile to my south. There, I picked up a lone elk moving out of the creek bottom and feeding up a brushy slope. The spotter confirmed this was a raghorn, but then there was another.




A narrow 5x5 with huge whale tail 4ths that piqued my interest. This morning had just gotten a lot better.



Then, taking up the rear, a moment I had dreamed about for 6 months.