Slm864
Well-known member
Awesome hunting trip. Congrats. That’s a hell of a blood trail. What broadheads do you shoot?
No sleep until...
- Thread starter GrantK
- Start date
GrantK
Well-known member
Rage trypan for this one, I think the 6th elk I've shot with those and the first to make it out of sight...
GrantK
Well-known member
If you saw how many days total I have invested and how many times I still screw it up you probably wouldn't be impressed...To consistently get it done on bulls of that caliber with archery equipment.
Wow.
Irrelevant
Well-known member
CPAjeff
Well-known member
Congrats on all the success!
Elkhunter24
Well-known member
Congrats!
EastTNHunter
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- Joined
- Jun 13, 2018
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- 1,596
I get the part if things gapping too quickly sometimes, but doing it that quickly while sick must have been a bit of a blessing. Congrats
Day 5:
I woke up feeling no better, but sucked it up and headed out, 3 loads later the entire elk was back at camp, one of the rougher 9-mile days I’ve had…I again spent the evening wandering around and glassing, again seeing no elk, it appeared that I had managed to get on the only herd in the entire drainage, better to be lucky than good…something I am realizing happens more often than one would think if you put in the time…
Day 6: I had planned to drop any elk I got off at a processor and do some climbing if I happened to be done early but I was still feeling terrible, I decided to pack it up and save time off for future adventures, I threw all my gear back in the truck and drove straight through, getting home at 10:00 PM.
In reflection, I had a great time but I wish I could have spent more time, while it was a spectacularly successful week it was more of a whirlwind of elk packing than the extended time in nature that I like to engage in…
fortunately, I still have an OTC tag at home... more to come
GrantK
Well-known member
Round 2: OTC Rifle hunt
As per usual I hedged around about getting a tag close to home, I like to try for a decent tag off the leftover list for as long as possible, and I also like to have a good bull located before I buy an OTC tag…freezer is full, only elk getting shot is a mature bull, not the easiest thing to come by on a CO OTC tag, however, I was complaining about not getting to hunt enough during the early hunts, this should fix that…
Day 1: the day before season: I had struck out on turned-in tags so it was time to see if I should buy an OTC tag for this season or wait for the next one… I had been glassing in the evenings for a week and had some good ideas about where to check...I made my way to a familiar glassing knob and immediately found 4 herds of elk, with what appeared to be one, maybe two shooter bulls, I watched them until they disappeared to bed without seeing any other people glassing them and headed back to town to buy a tag… I glassed a different area in the evening and saw a bunch of cows, and potentially a shooter bull but I couldn’t confirm in the timber…
As per usual I hedged around about getting a tag close to home, I like to try for a decent tag off the leftover list for as long as possible, and I also like to have a good bull located before I buy an OTC tag…freezer is full, only elk getting shot is a mature bull, not the easiest thing to come by on a CO OTC tag, however, I was complaining about not getting to hunt enough during the early hunts, this should fix that…
Day 1: the day before season: I had struck out on turned-in tags so it was time to see if I should buy an OTC tag for this season or wait for the next one… I had been glassing in the evenings for a week and had some good ideas about where to check...I made my way to a familiar glassing knob and immediately found 4 herds of elk, with what appeared to be one, maybe two shooter bulls, I watched them until they disappeared to bed without seeing any other people glassing them and headed back to town to buy a tag… I glassed a different area in the evening and saw a bunch of cows, and potentially a shooter bull but I couldn’t confirm in the timber…
GrantK
Well-known member
Day 2: Opening day! I woke up at 2:30 AM to hopefully be the first on the mountain where I had seen the shooter bulls… there was no sign of humans on the way up almost 2,000 vertical feet of bushwacking up a ridge that put me on a perfect shooting knob central where I had watched the elk the previous morning, I was excited, it was game on! As It got light I started to get concerned, I should be seeing elk everywhere, and yet there was absolutely nothing, as it got slightly brighter I realized that I could see a tent right where one of the herds had been, then another, and another, for a total of four camps in the same area the elk had been the previous morning, I finally located a herd of elk among the tents, with one shooter bull, 5 raghorns and about 15 cows… I needed to move about 200 yards to have a shot so I hunkered down and started moving as quickly as I could, knowing that my time was probably limited with the number of people in the area… I was 30 yards from a small knob where I should have a 300 yard shot when I heard the first shot, I ran the rest of the way to the knob just in time to see the big bull disappear into a draw headed downhill, the rest of the herd milling around in the open, I glassed the herd hoping for a second good bull as the other party who had started shooting kept going, eventually getting one of the raghorns, then the herd popped over a ridge and ran straight into another group just getting out of their tent, what followed was an impressive shootout that ended with another 2 raghorns and a cow down, with about 30 shots fired… pretty disgusted with the situation I made a loop below where they were whooping it up and found another bull that they had managed to kill about 200 yards down the hill, I hiked back up and told them they had another one down, finding out that they didn’t really have a plan to get elk out once they got them and were starting to look a little nervous about the prospect of packing 4 elk out from the nasty spot they were in… I was hopeful that they would manage to do a decent job of getting everything taken care of but made a mental note to check back and make sure they had packed everything out in a couple days…
I worked a roundabout loop back to the truck trying to see if I could locate any of the other elk that had been in the area the day prior, unfortunately, it appeared that everything had pulled stakes and moved a significant distance, by the time I got back to the truck it was too late to move to my plan B spot so I drove to another glassing knob I know, hiking to the top in time to see about 15 cows with no bull hanging out about 300 yards above a large group of hunters drinking beer on their tailgates… I continued to find more elk in ones and twos until it got dark but no promising bulls.
I worked a roundabout loop back to the truck trying to see if I could locate any of the other elk that had been in the area the day prior, unfortunately, it appeared that everything had pulled stakes and moved a significant distance, by the time I got back to the truck it was too late to move to my plan B spot so I drove to another glassing knob I know, hiking to the top in time to see about 15 cows with no bull hanging out about 300 yards above a large group of hunters drinking beer on their tailgates… I continued to find more elk in ones and twos until it got dark but no promising bulls.
GrantK
Well-known member
Day 3:
I decided to hit some off-the-wall spots where I have seen the occasional big bull but aren’t spots that I would hit as a first choice when any elk is on the menu, I figured it better to let the pressure ease a little, I’d go for low odds of elk but no hunters after the day before...
Surprisingly on my third glassing spot I found a group of cows and close by two bulls that warranted a closer look… getting to these involved navigating a bunch of private inholdings and I accidentally managed to pop up on the wrong ridge, just catching a glimpse of the bulls going over the ridge… fortunately they were heading to an easier to access spot so I descended back to the truck and drove around to the other side for the afternoon hunt.
After eating lunch I headed up toward where I had seen the bulls disappear in the morning, a nasty bushwhack through blowdown timber, only about 200 yards from the truck I started seeing elk on the ridge in the timber, I messed around for a while trying to pick out a bull but they all appeared to be cows… as I got up higher I spotted a herd on the top of a bald knob about 2 miles away, one was a bull big enough that I could see a rack at that distance through binoculars so I made a mental note to go over there if things didn’t pan out tonight… I made it to the top of the ridge and slowly started hunting through small openings on ridges, soon hearing a distant cow chirp, followed by a very, very close cow chirp, I eased my rifle off of my pack and got ready in case there was a bull, then had a dozen cows feed by me at 50 yards, no bull to be seen… the big bull and his herd fed right out in the open until dark…
I decided to hit some off-the-wall spots where I have seen the occasional big bull but aren’t spots that I would hit as a first choice when any elk is on the menu, I figured it better to let the pressure ease a little, I’d go for low odds of elk but no hunters after the day before...
Surprisingly on my third glassing spot I found a group of cows and close by two bulls that warranted a closer look… getting to these involved navigating a bunch of private inholdings and I accidentally managed to pop up on the wrong ridge, just catching a glimpse of the bulls going over the ridge… fortunately they were heading to an easier to access spot so I descended back to the truck and drove around to the other side for the afternoon hunt.
After eating lunch I headed up toward where I had seen the bulls disappear in the morning, a nasty bushwhack through blowdown timber, only about 200 yards from the truck I started seeing elk on the ridge in the timber, I messed around for a while trying to pick out a bull but they all appeared to be cows… as I got up higher I spotted a herd on the top of a bald knob about 2 miles away, one was a bull big enough that I could see a rack at that distance through binoculars so I made a mental note to go over there if things didn’t pan out tonight… I made it to the top of the ridge and slowly started hunting through small openings on ridges, soon hearing a distant cow chirp, followed by a very, very close cow chirp, I eased my rifle off of my pack and got ready in case there was a bull, then had a dozen cows feed by me at 50 yards, no bull to be seen… the big bull and his herd fed right out in the open until dark…
GrantK
Well-known member
found a new icicle to try to climb...
GrantK
Well-known member
Day 4:
I had to go to work Monday to get crews lined out and out the door for the week, I hustled to get caught up with my email and all the typical Monday morning schedule reshuffling and was able to get out the door in time to make an afternoon hunt where I had seen the big bull the night before, the weather was awesome and I was wearing running shoes and jogging up the trail to get to the area when I ran into a friend coming down with a nice bull on his pack, we stopped and BS’d for a while, he had got his bull one drainage over from the big bull I had located and said nobody had been back anywhere close to the drainage with the big bull, encouraged by that news I continued up and found tons of fresh sign but no elk, ending the day at a little over 6 miles walked in a short half day hunt…
I had to go to work Monday to get crews lined out and out the door for the week, I hustled to get caught up with my email and all the typical Monday morning schedule reshuffling and was able to get out the door in time to make an afternoon hunt where I had seen the big bull the night before, the weather was awesome and I was wearing running shoes and jogging up the trail to get to the area when I ran into a friend coming down with a nice bull on his pack, we stopped and BS’d for a while, he had got his bull one drainage over from the big bull I had located and said nobody had been back anywhere close to the drainage with the big bull, encouraged by that news I continued up and found tons of fresh sign but no elk, ending the day at a little over 6 miles walked in a short half day hunt…
GrantK
Well-known member
Day 5: I played hookey from work and went back to a spot on the opposite side of the canyon from my first-day hunt, intending to glass the carcasses and make sure that the other crew had packed everything out, I hadn’t gone 200 yards before I was in fresh elk tracks everywhere, I slowed down and eased through the timber for a couple of hours on fresh sign the entire time but no elk sightings, slightly odd? I was able to glass and confirm that the first-day guys had managed to pack out all their elk which was good, they didn’t give me much confidence to start out…
As I pushed deeper into the drainage the lack of elk started to make sense, right in the primary saddle to get into the area, 40’ from an elk trail worn 2’ into the slope, there was a tent set up with a stove rolling full bore and some 80s rock going on a Bluetooth speaker… I headed back to the truck, passing 2 more camps squarely in the elk’s primary feeding areas… I burned most of midday finishing up honey-do projects around the house before the projected storm that was supposed to be hitting the next day, then, mid-afternoon decided that I had enough time to run up to a glassing point that occasionally produces a bull trying to escape the pressure by midseason… I rolled in to find 6 trucks parked with spotting scopes on the windows-no point in wasting my time it looked like, I pulled into a parking spot a ways away from the masses and figured I should at least give it a cursory look, I didn’t have time to go elsewhere at that point, no sooner had I put 15’s on a tripod than I saw elk! All cows but I had to double-check, none of the other trucks were making a move? Odd, but people are bad at spotting elk...
A couple of guys pulled up and were wondering If I had seen any cows so far that season, I offered to let them look at the ones I had in my bino’s as I figured they wouldn’t be interested in going after them, they were a long ways away and it was 45 minutes from dark… as I was talking and moving the binoculars for them to keep on the elk I suddenly saw antlers turn and then disappear, hold on! are we in business?
I switched to my spotting scope and sure enough, picked out 5 bulls bedded in the oak, tough to tell if any were shooters but one was at least close, I looked around, surely someone was making a move on these elk, I was the last one to the party today... Nope, everyone else had left, I figured it was worth a closer look, quickly grabbed my pack and threw on hunter orange and boots before saying goodbye to the cow hunters and dropping into the canyon, I’ve hunted in this zone for years and knew that there was an old road that would get me to the bottom fast, I jogged down this, getting out of the elk’s line of sight pretty quickly, I hit the bottom, forded the creek, and started up the other side, keeping in a deep arroyo in the middle of the slope to stay out of sight, I popped up every couple hundred yards to judge where I was at before my cover ran out, I was able to get out of the arroyo at about 400 yards from the bulls and get behind some oakbrush, making the final stalk pretty easy, I got to the end of the oak, took off my pack and was preparing to ease out and be ready to shoot if the biggest bull was what I was looking for when a shot rang out from behind me, in the direction of the road, I could hear the sonic crack as it went over my head, quite close, followed very quickly by a second shot, I first popped out to see if the elk had been hit, maybe there was someone else in here I hadn’t seen? Elk seemed unconcerned so I looked behind me to find two guys prone on the road, at what I ranged later as approx. 1400 yards from the elk… launching rounds over my head at the elk.. at this point I was in the wide open to them covered in blaze orange so I figure they had to see me and were hoping to beat me to the elk? They did another two shot volley and then hopped in their truck and took off...
not that happy with the odd encounter I finally eased out prone and found all 5 bulls feeding at 350 yards, on edge but not all that alarmed by the shooting… the biggest was a 5 point that was almost what I was looking for, big body, really good down low but totally running out at the top of his rack, I sat there for the remainder of legal light trying to talk myself into shooting him, however, I just couldn’t get excited about it after the last couple days, I was loving the pursuit but pretty thoroughly disgusted with other hunters, I decided that if I wasn’t excited to pull the trigger than the situation and bull definitely weren’t the right one and I watched him until it was completely dark and slipped out…
As I pushed deeper into the drainage the lack of elk started to make sense, right in the primary saddle to get into the area, 40’ from an elk trail worn 2’ into the slope, there was a tent set up with a stove rolling full bore and some 80s rock going on a Bluetooth speaker… I headed back to the truck, passing 2 more camps squarely in the elk’s primary feeding areas… I burned most of midday finishing up honey-do projects around the house before the projected storm that was supposed to be hitting the next day, then, mid-afternoon decided that I had enough time to run up to a glassing point that occasionally produces a bull trying to escape the pressure by midseason… I rolled in to find 6 trucks parked with spotting scopes on the windows-no point in wasting my time it looked like, I pulled into a parking spot a ways away from the masses and figured I should at least give it a cursory look, I didn’t have time to go elsewhere at that point, no sooner had I put 15’s on a tripod than I saw elk! All cows but I had to double-check, none of the other trucks were making a move? Odd, but people are bad at spotting elk...
A couple of guys pulled up and were wondering If I had seen any cows so far that season, I offered to let them look at the ones I had in my bino’s as I figured they wouldn’t be interested in going after them, they were a long ways away and it was 45 minutes from dark… as I was talking and moving the binoculars for them to keep on the elk I suddenly saw antlers turn and then disappear, hold on! are we in business?
I switched to my spotting scope and sure enough, picked out 5 bulls bedded in the oak, tough to tell if any were shooters but one was at least close, I looked around, surely someone was making a move on these elk, I was the last one to the party today... Nope, everyone else had left, I figured it was worth a closer look, quickly grabbed my pack and threw on hunter orange and boots before saying goodbye to the cow hunters and dropping into the canyon, I’ve hunted in this zone for years and knew that there was an old road that would get me to the bottom fast, I jogged down this, getting out of the elk’s line of sight pretty quickly, I hit the bottom, forded the creek, and started up the other side, keeping in a deep arroyo in the middle of the slope to stay out of sight, I popped up every couple hundred yards to judge where I was at before my cover ran out, I was able to get out of the arroyo at about 400 yards from the bulls and get behind some oakbrush, making the final stalk pretty easy, I got to the end of the oak, took off my pack and was preparing to ease out and be ready to shoot if the biggest bull was what I was looking for when a shot rang out from behind me, in the direction of the road, I could hear the sonic crack as it went over my head, quite close, followed very quickly by a second shot, I first popped out to see if the elk had been hit, maybe there was someone else in here I hadn’t seen? Elk seemed unconcerned so I looked behind me to find two guys prone on the road, at what I ranged later as approx. 1400 yards from the elk… launching rounds over my head at the elk.. at this point I was in the wide open to them covered in blaze orange so I figure they had to see me and were hoping to beat me to the elk? They did another two shot volley and then hopped in their truck and took off...
not that happy with the odd encounter I finally eased out prone and found all 5 bulls feeding at 350 yards, on edge but not all that alarmed by the shooting… the biggest was a 5 point that was almost what I was looking for, big body, really good down low but totally running out at the top of his rack, I sat there for the remainder of legal light trying to talk myself into shooting him, however, I just couldn’t get excited about it after the last couple days, I was loving the pursuit but pretty thoroughly disgusted with other hunters, I decided that if I wasn’t excited to pull the trigger than the situation and bull definitely weren’t the right one and I watched him until it was completely dark and slipped out…
GrantK
Well-known member
Irrelevant
Well-known member
@GrantK sneaky good thread, you're 1. dealing with some real winners out there in CO and 2. have you snit dialed.
Very much enjoying this.
Very much enjoying this.
YukonGold
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- Joined
- Aug 19, 2022
- Messages
- 199
BROOKLYN
(sorry)
(sorry)
rjthehunter
Well-known member
It's wild to me reading some of these stories about interactions with other hunters. Someone shooting over his head at an elk he's stalking... That's messed up and dangerous as hell.
GrantK
Well-known member
It was a weird season this year, I'm used to all the public land elk shenanigans but I usually manage to avoid being involved, preferring to let the stupidity push elk to locations where I'm the only one around, I'm not sure what was going on with all the people deciding to throw out what they have been doing for years and use bad tactics in good spots...
rjthehunter
Well-known member
The typical "Colorado Public Land Elk Hunter" is evolving! You're going to have to change your tactics to stay a few steps ahead of them.
GrantK
Well-known member
Day 6:
I had to work in the morning, again hustling to get wrapped up and out of the office in time to at least glass, having a good idea where I should be looking from the previous evening I headed to another low oak hillside, I was late and I got to a glassing knob just in time to see a couple of other guys blow a stalk on a raghorn, I spotted another bull that was a long way out, and as I was contemplating if I could make it to him before dark I got a text from my wife asking if I could help her get some trees planted before the big storm rolled in, guess that settles it for me…not much hunting but elk seen.
I had to work in the morning, again hustling to get wrapped up and out of the office in time to at least glass, having a good idea where I should be looking from the previous evening I headed to another low oak hillside, I was late and I got to a glassing knob just in time to see a couple of other guys blow a stalk on a raghorn, I spotted another bull that was a long way out, and as I was contemplating if I could make it to him before dark I got a text from my wife asking if I could help her get some trees planted before the big storm rolled in, guess that settles it for me…not much hunting but elk seen.
