First off I will apologize for the lack of pictures the temperature was to cold that it would drain the batteries.
Well the first trip to Colorado and first elk hunt is in the books. My neighbor and I left Tuesday morning for our hunt. We wanted to arrive a couple days before season to scout and get sort of acclimated to the altitude. We initially camped at 10400’ and after a day of scouting found the elk were landing out about 9400’. We ended up taking a closed forest service road around the mountain 4.5 miles from the truck. I found an old site next to a small runoff stream and had initials carved into the aspen; it had 5 years carved into the tree under the names and the last date was 2018 so I figured it had to be a decent spot for someone to comeback 5 years. We get camp set up and an hour before dark here comes 4 guys down this old road with game carts and stop and look at us and tell us that this is where they had planned on camping as well as they were from the nearby town and hunt from there normally. We y’all and tell them if they want to pile in to go for it.
Opening Day
I come out of my tent at 530am to see another 2 hunters hiking in to where we are and pass our camp. We decide even with 8 of us in the area that we will continue with our original plan and hike out to a bluff over looking a big log cut. The light starts to come slightly and we are over looking a clearing with 800 yard views and as the sun comes up there are 6 other orange vest staged around this clearing. I began to laugh at the scene that is before us. I told my buddy we need to get away from this crowd so we break Down the hill to 9000’ and start seeing really fresh sign. At 830am I hear what sounds like several horses running I look up to see 8 large cow elk come up a drainage from private property and trot in front of me at about 100 yards; I throw up and line up on one of the cows and squeeze off a round. The shot was “just a little far back”, well the GUT shot cow proceeds to slowly walk 15 yards up the hill and stops and just standing there and the sun behind her so I have no shot at all just fire ball in the scope. I tell my buddy to shoot her if he can; so he puts her down. We get her bagged up and split the meat and plan on getting all the meat to camp in 1 trip.(2 miles) this takes us 3 hours to get the meat to camp. Once in camp we ask one of the locals to borrow their game cart to haul out the meat to the truck. We get the meat to the truck at 5pm(4.5 miles) turn around and go back to our camp site and arrive back at 730pm return the cart, break down camp and hike back to the truck and reach the truck at 930pm for a total of 19. Something miles for the day.
It was a successful first elk hunt but my goodness was it brutal and at the time I was soo convinced that I would never do it again, now I am thinking of what to do different for next year... Hahaha
The mountain we hunted.
First night camp at the truck
The bulls were still bugling but were mainly on the private land.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Well the first trip to Colorado and first elk hunt is in the books. My neighbor and I left Tuesday morning for our hunt. We wanted to arrive a couple days before season to scout and get sort of acclimated to the altitude. We initially camped at 10400’ and after a day of scouting found the elk were landing out about 9400’. We ended up taking a closed forest service road around the mountain 4.5 miles from the truck. I found an old site next to a small runoff stream and had initials carved into the aspen; it had 5 years carved into the tree under the names and the last date was 2018 so I figured it had to be a decent spot for someone to comeback 5 years. We get camp set up and an hour before dark here comes 4 guys down this old road with game carts and stop and look at us and tell us that this is where they had planned on camping as well as they were from the nearby town and hunt from there normally. We y’all and tell them if they want to pile in to go for it.
Opening Day
I come out of my tent at 530am to see another 2 hunters hiking in to where we are and pass our camp. We decide even with 8 of us in the area that we will continue with our original plan and hike out to a bluff over looking a big log cut. The light starts to come slightly and we are over looking a clearing with 800 yard views and as the sun comes up there are 6 other orange vest staged around this clearing. I began to laugh at the scene that is before us. I told my buddy we need to get away from this crowd so we break Down the hill to 9000’ and start seeing really fresh sign. At 830am I hear what sounds like several horses running I look up to see 8 large cow elk come up a drainage from private property and trot in front of me at about 100 yards; I throw up and line up on one of the cows and squeeze off a round. The shot was “just a little far back”, well the GUT shot cow proceeds to slowly walk 15 yards up the hill and stops and just standing there and the sun behind her so I have no shot at all just fire ball in the scope. I tell my buddy to shoot her if he can; so he puts her down. We get her bagged up and split the meat and plan on getting all the meat to camp in 1 trip.(2 miles) this takes us 3 hours to get the meat to camp. Once in camp we ask one of the locals to borrow their game cart to haul out the meat to the truck. We get the meat to the truck at 5pm(4.5 miles) turn around and go back to our camp site and arrive back at 730pm return the cart, break down camp and hike back to the truck and reach the truck at 930pm for a total of 19. Something miles for the day.
It was a successful first elk hunt but my goodness was it brutal and at the time I was soo convinced that I would never do it again, now I am thinking of what to do different for next year... Hahaha
The mountain we hunted.
First night camp at the truck
The bulls were still bugling but were mainly on the private land.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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