Unit 1 Colorado Elk

[TheGreek]

Unit 1, Far NW Colorado, Brown’s Park, the far end of Moffat County, the stuff dreams are made of. A 20 point bull tag for residents. A 30 point tag for NRs. Most guys dream their whole life about a bull tag for this unit.

 

[Bigjay73]

Waiting for Paul Harvey to chime in

 

[TheGreek]

This hunt ain’t about any of that. This hunt was a cow elk tag for the same unit for first rifle that I picked up on the reissue list. And then I mentioned it to the 8 year old and he said he wanted to come along. Why not, it’s a reissue tag? His hockey kept us from leaving town until mid morning Saturday with a 2.5 hr drive and only an evening and the following morning to hunt.
Truck loaded and ready to go.

 

[TheGreek]

Enjoying the new to us wall tent that I picked up from a tighta** old timer in Cheyenne off FB marketplace. Dude wouldn’t budge off asking price. Still pretty happy with it for $500.

 

[TheGreek]

So we got out to brown’s park midday Saturday, set up the aforementioned wall tent, which is small enough for me to set up solo (good thing too) drove around and checked out where you can waterfowl hunt on the NWR. Did I mention that half of this hunt was an excuse to check out a place to duck hunt that is open later than my eastern zone Pacific flyway haunts?

 

[TheGreek]

After driving around enough to drive the kid crazy, we headed out about 4pm up a draw that was recommended to me by the CPW bio. Kid did great up and back through some challenging terrain. I finally found a use for the mole skin I’ve had in my pack for years when his boots rubbed his one heel. An afternoon and evening of hiking didn’t result in any elk spotted but it did result in my son saying how glad he was that I brought him, multiple times. That made me feel pretty warm and cozy inside.
Coming down.

Looking back up to where we hiked up.

 

[TheGreek]

Sunday morning found us running a little late and headed to check out the single piece of private in the area, that happens to be a hay field, that the bio said the elk hammer at night. We pulled up a bit short and got out of the truck and saw a slammer bull a thousand yards up the hillside. He dove into the PJ.

We proceeded to hike up the ridge where we could glass down into the private hayfield. There were probably 8 or 12 elk on the hayfield at 8am. I started glassing them to see if we could try and intercept a cow coming off the private before they hit the monument. I quickly realized they were probably all bulls! And meanwhile bulls were screaming from the other direction towards the BLM or monument.

We watched some of the elk leave the hay field and ford the river to another unit. All the while bulls are screaming in the other direction.

 

[TheGreek]

So we start hiking up towards the monument/blm border to see if the bugles we hear are coming from BLM or the monument. We hit the border and I quickly realize that these bulls, and hopefully some cows, are on BLM and huntable.

The boy and I keep working in their direction and I finally get eyes on a large group of bulls and cows in a rocky, grassy area. We go towards them and we get to 1000 yards before we run out of cover.

I ask the boy if he wants to put a big looped stalk on them or if we should head back. It’s 8:30am at this point. The bulls are still screaming their heads off. He says let’s go.

So we back out and around, trying to stay way out of sight. 45 minutes later we are getting close. I had been able to glad the herd a few times and they hadn’t moved and the bulls were still bugling.

We were sneaking around the backside of where we expected them to be when I spotted two good 6x6s at 100 yards that had broken off from the group. They stared at us for a minute before they broke and headed in a trot back towards the rest of the group.

We climbed up over a rock outcropping to where I expected we would be able to see the herd but they were all gone. We sat up there for 20 minutes listening to elk bugle in the distance. It was a Cool experience and even better to share it with an 8 year old. He did great.

 

[TheGreek]

Some brown’s park public art we found on the stalk.

 

[TheGreek]

Catching our breath and enjoying the view after our busted stalk.

 

[TheGreek]

Proud dadda and son.

 

[TheGreek]

This hunt was short and didn’t involve any punched tags or dead animals. But it meant a lot to me to be able to share it with my 8 year old son. I’m really fortunate to live in a place where I can get into this type of country in only a few hours and be home for dinner Sunday. Being able to share this experience with my son reminded me so much why I love hunting as much as I do.

 

[TheGreek]

One foot in CO, one foot in Utah. He thought this was the coolest thing, to have a foot in two different states at the same time.

 

[cohunter14]

Thanks for sharing the story! Sounds like a great time.

 

[Pagosa]

Best hunting story this year. You guys had a successful hunt, and hopefully you got a duck blind picked out.

 

[caddiscrazy]

He will never forget that trip with you! Awesome experience sir

 

[2rocky]

there is a lot of interesting history from that part of the country.

My father brought me this book when i was young..

Amazon.com : Old West Stayed Young

 

[Jorgy]

I have hunted cow elk there a few times, and deer once, but it's been 10 years since the last time. Love that area. Is the swinging bridge still there for access?

 

[elkduds]

Unit 1, Far NW Colorado, Brown’s Park, the far end of Moffat County, the stuff dreams are made of. A 20 point bull tag for residents. A 30 point tag for NRs. Most guys dream their whole life about a bull tag for this unit.

I've had many great CO hunts on cow tags in RFW, 61, 49, 40 and others where bull tags are unobtanium. It is a good strategy to see many and bigger bulls, and still fill the freezer. You have a short time in a great spot with a special copilot.

 

[TheGreek]

I have hunted cow elk there a few times, and deer once, but it's been 10 years since the last time. Love that area. Is the swinging bridge still there for access?

Yup, 8 feet wide