Elk hunt (none harvested) near Durango, CO pics

[Shaun]

Jim Gilmer (LITTLEBIGMAN) and myself got home late Friday from a fine hunt in CO. We were hosted by local LEO Adam Gihrke (gihrke145) who has lived in the area for 3 years and pointed us towards elk. We hunted relatively easy access public land and camped at the end of the motor allowed road. We did not take any shots at elk but had a few close encounters and basked in the beauty of SW Colorado.

The following photos will give you some feel for the time afield - they are in chronological order.


Adam and Jim tune up after we set camp.

 

Adam's bow broke a week before and he was looking hard for a new ILF riser. I turned him on to Jim Belcher and they worked it out. New riser arrived the same day we did and Adam was anxious to give it a test drive.

 

Jim's turn.

 

[Shaun]

There was great elk cover with a mix of oak brush, open parks, poplar and pine/spruce dark timber.

 

Adam camped with us the first few days and his SO arrived the second eve too. Here she is making SMORES and enjoying the fire.

 

Our camp site was at 8500 ft and we hunted up from there. Looking back at camp from about 9000

 

Movin' on up

 

There is a lot of up in elk hunting. As my legs and lungs began to adjust, I told Jim, "I could walk DOWN hill all day."

[Shaun]

A quick digression to "stop and smell the flowers"

 

The birds and the bees

 

These little fellows took me back to age 4 when I lived a year in OK City. At that age I "hunted" these by hand live capture method. They eat ants ya know...

 

[Pat B]

Beautiful country out there ain't it Shaun. I was north of Durango in the San Juan Mts. a few years ago on an elk hunt.

[Shaun]

Jim and Adam head up through the oak brush on about day 3. They had a close encounter with a cow and calf - in range but no shot taken.

 

We planned to stay most of two weeks and there was no sense of urgency. Mid day break for espresso and study of an old Dave Peterson elk article.

 

Comfortable "car camp" with shade, cook and sleep tent and remote tent for those who consider snoring a bother. Being the offender and owner of the big tent, I slept close to the fire.

 

We had unusual cell reception with a tower nearby and that thing in Jim's hand he called his "Crackberry" - it ain't right to work in elk camp!

[Shaun]

Here in the Midwest, oak is a tree. In the San Jaun mountains of SW Colorado it is a brush. Big ones were 12 ft tall and most were shorter and dense cover.

 

There was a good crop of acorns (akerns for you bellow the MD line) and we were hoping for an elk invasion to feed on them.

 

A few elk did come on down but mostly at night and they got chased back up at daylight. The mule deer were often around and in the oaks.

 

[knife river]

More, please.        I always enjoy your writing, Shaun.

[Shaun]

Yes Pat, it is great country. One of my favorite things to do is hunt new country to me. The SW corner of Colorado is much different from the high Rockies of the northern part of the state.

From camp we often headed up the mountain to our north. About half way up our route we entered the poplar woods. The way the trunks fill in the distance is hard to believe. Most places you could not see 100 yards... game appears and disappears like magic in this stuff. Me and my trusty 59# osage stick.

 

Jim in the poppels.

 

Looks like a bunch of trees... but its not. Poplar are the worlds largest living organisms. All these stems belong to one root system.

[quackersnacker]

Great story and pics!!

[Shaun]

Jim found a fine set of antlers one day and added them to the shade to class up our camp. It was the smallest 5 x 5 elk rack I'd ever seen. Jim said he thought it was a deer rack till he picked it up.

 

See how our chairs are facing? That was the morning position, evening was around the fire. After morning hunt we would return for more coffee, maybe some breakfast and "elk TV". See that fine mountain back there? Its two miles to the top (as the raven flies) and 3000 ft up. We stayed off of the top part because that was our elk sanctuary and viewing area. Can you see em?

 

OK - they are in the top right meadow, dark grass area lower left near the poplars - look like tan grains of rice.

They looked about like this in 10 power binos. After a few days of looking, I began to pick them out without the binos. I realized that at home I never look at things two miles away. A new way of looking at the world.

[Shaun]

If we turned the chairs around before sunset, we could see this to the south...

 

That is Maggie Rock and below it is the home ranch of Louis Lamour. If you don't know who that is, well, there's little hope for you as a western hunter and Ronald Reagan will spin in his grave. Louis passed a couple years back but his widow still lives there. I was disappointed when I realized I had read all of his work. But was soon heartened to remember that as an old hippie with long term loss of short term memory I would soon be able to start over fresh.

[Shaun]

About a week into the hunt, I had Jim drop me off near the left edge of the picture with the elk rack. There is another forest road that goes that far and I hiked (down hill) the 3.5 miles back to camp. It was a fine afternoon and the deer were out and about. I bumped this buck a couple times - much different behavior from my home whitetails.

 

There is a "government trail" from this far road back towards our mountain. Here the well maintained trail crosses Starvation Creek at about 10500 ft.

This day I broke out the wood arrows (one has your obsidian point Woody) but the change did not bring out the elk.

 

Past the creek a doe mulie played peek-a-boo in the poplars. This is a no zoom pic at 25 yards

 

And a zoom x 10 better look

 

[Shaun]

There was some great people visiting on this hunt. I met a fine young fellow from Louisiana who had bagged 3 elk in 3 years at this spot. He left after a week without a shot but did visit our camp and share a fire and stories. His name, Thomas Cassidy and he was using the other bow like thing to hunt. But, I let him shoot my back up Wes Wallace recurve and he admired my self bow no end, announcing that he planned to return next season with a self bow.

Joe (Whip) Lasch came to share camp for  couple days between his hunt for deer a bit north of us (he has a story to tell us about that!) and his hunt for elk in NM starting about now. The two of us lunched with Dave (Dave2old) Peterson in Durango one day. It was fun for a couple flatlanders to visit with a local and experienced mountain elk man. We talked management - in CO you cannot shoot spikes and nearby UT you can only shoot spikes in some areas, and hunting politics -don't get him started on the topic of 4 wheelers, and methods - "I only hunt UP!" says Dave.

Adam and his dad checked in a couple times and its good to know that a young man can be so mature, grounded and levelheaded. At his age I was still trying to decide if the party I went to when I turned 15 was over yet. Adam's dad Dave was down from Denver to spend a week with his son hunting. He had taken a mulie buck and they both had turkeys in the bag and were working on some big bulls when we left. Thanks Adam for all you help and direction on this hunt.

And my buddy Jim... its a treasure to have close friends who share the passion for taking a bow to the woods. What a comfort to know we will spend many more hours afield together this season and those to come.

It was only a short 12 days at camp, but from having cattle crash away through the oak brush BEFORE I had seen them, to seeing cattle and wildlife of all kinds first - sometimes they never knew I had been there - it was the transformation from Elmer Fudd to part of the ecosystem that happens every fall.

Its over 600 miles from where I-76 crosses into northern CO to the SW corner where high sage plateaus climb to the rounded top San Jauns - worth every mile of driving to experience such a unique place and folks.

 

[SlowBowke]

Pretty neat and us "flatlanders" do appreciate the photos!!

Looks like some awesome country and sounds like it was a great time.

[Benny Nganabbarru]

Wonderful, just wonderful! Thanks for sharing your trip with us. I particularly liked learning about those poplars. Cheers!

[BobCo 1965]

Sounds like a great time. We're gonna miss not hunting with you this year Shaun!

[Gehrke145]

Good write up buddy!  I wish I had a little more time to hunt with you guys.  I was really hoping you guys were going to get a crack at an elk or a bear.  I hope you guys come back out for deer?

[buckster]

Looks like a great trip, thanks for sharing!

[Kingwouldbe]

Sounds like you guy's had a good time, thanks

[barebow17]

Nice pics.Looks like a great time.