2011 Colorado Elk Hunt

[Margly]

   

[elk ninja]

Alright, looking good!  

[Steven Russell]

Well, that's a start at least.    

Ready for the next installment.

 

[karrow]

more! more! lets here the rest john  

[John Scifres]

Saturday, 9/3/11:

We woke a little after first light and headed up the creek.  The plan was to cover the area from camp all the way to the bowl at the top, about 2" miles and 800 feet or so.  Then, depending on what we found, we would head to the next drainage over and see what there was to see.  There was definitely some elk sign but nothing fresher than a week or so.

     

We had some fun near a couple old beaver ponds.

   

Up at the bowl, we shot a bit and ran across another elk camp.   We saw some nice benches on the next ridge and tried them out.  There was a little fresher sign up there but also yet another camp.  We finally decided there was too much company in this one drainage and we would head deeper in the next day.

Back at camp, Darren discovered he left all his extra socks back at the car and would have to make the 4 mile round trip early in the morning before we packed up for some deeper woods and fewer other hunters.  With a nice dinner of some kind of noodle or rice, we got to bed with dreams of wild country.

[John Scifres]

Sunday, 9/4/11:

Darren awoke at sunrise and readied for his sprint to the sock nirvana that awaited back at the trailhead.  I silently giggled at his misfortune as I snuggled more deeply into my sleeping bag on this chilly, 32 degree morning.

Not long after he left, I heard what sounded like a herd.  Somewhere up the creek a ways.  I initially talked myself out of going after them but the desire to kill something got the better of me.  I got dressed and gave chase.  As I neared where I thought the herd might be, I decided I better warm myself and my bow up.  At half draw, I was shocked by the top limb letting go.  The belly lam basically disengaged itself from the core.

Immensely glad that I had brought a backup bow, I wandered back to camp and made the quick decision to make my own trek back to the car knowing full well that Karma had smacked me upside the head for giggling at Darren.  About 500 yards from camp, I met up with Darren and showed him the reason I was mirroring his unanticipated journey.  I made it the 1.9 miles downhill in 23 minutes but the uphill back to camp took 47 minutes.

The end result was that both Darren and I had put on almost 4 miles before we even started our 7 mile pack-in to the promised land of elk hunting back at what had become known as "Darren's Mountain".  

We made coffee and had some food before packing up.  It was at this point that I discovered my water purification tabs had dropped from my camera case where I had put them the day before.  Unfortunately, I had no backup for them.  Stupid I know.  Darren had enough for about 4 days for the both of us.  We would either drink meltwater from the high creeks or hope that someone at base camp had some extra.

We began the hike that became a near-death experience by the end of the day.  About 2.5 miles out, we came across a yuppie couple from Denver that we originally met at the trailhead.  They had made a magnificent backpacking loop that was probably in the 20 mile range that inspired me to be certain not to fail my bloodthirsty hunting brethren.  Truly though, they were very nice and even recognized that we were using trad gear v. arrow launching machinery (not that there's anything wrong with that    )

We made a single rest stop 5 miles into the trek and then made Camp 2 right at dusk.  We lucked into an old outfitters camp with a great tent pad and large fire ring which we put to good use this night and the next few.

I don't have any pics from this day because I was too dammed tired to pull out my camera.  But here are a couple Hunting GQ totally unposed pics for your viewing pleasure.

 

 

[rastaman]

[Over&Under]

I am enjoying this very much!  Keep it coming!

     

[John Scifres]

Monday, 9/5/11:

We awoke to 35 degrees about 4:45 and got ready to head the mile or so to Darren's Mountain.  As we walked the trail up, we found an elevation we thought would put us in a place to intercept the elk as they moved from the meadows below to the bedding areas above.  We were at about 10,600 feet.  We found a spot where a couple trails intersected and set up a calling sequence.  Darren positioned himself behind me about 40 yards and I found a spot that would afford me the chance for a shot if he called anything past me.  He began calling and I scrambled to get my facemask on, find a comfortable position, make sure I had clearance for a shot all things that kept me moving a bit.  This was the first time I had hunted elk or set up for a calling sequence in 3 years so I was a bit rusty.  10 minutes later I looked back at Darren after seeing or hearing nothing and he gave me a shoulder shrug, arms up, "what the hell are you doing" look.  I was puzzled.  Then he came up to me and informed me that a large 5x5 bull had eased into the setup just a few minutes after calling started.  The bull pulled up 25 yards from me, behind and to the left, and stood broadside as I fiddled with my setup.  He eventually got nervous after not seeing a cow and turned to leave.  I missed it all!  I was watching where I assumed elk would come from forgetting that they cme from wherever they want.  Daggonit!

All was not lost as a couple minutes later, I spotted 2 cows 40 yards off and feeding towards us.  Darren spotted a few more and we figured it was only a matter of time before we got a shot.  

Then the bull showed back up.  20 yards away, opposite from where he was before.  But, he was behind a bunch of trees and I couldn't shoot.  He seemed to want to circle downwind but just couldn't convince himself to open himself up.  His 6th sense was in overdrive and despite not knowing what was up, he never gave a shot.  A couple times he began to move and I almost drew once but then he would turn so that all I had was a partially blocked, frontal shot.  The cows were still ambling to us this whole time and had closed to under 30 yards.  5 more and they would offer broadside shots to either me or Darren. It was not to be however as the bull eventually turned to leave and one-by-one, the cows turned to follow.  None of them had spooked but they just faded away.  It was an exciting but frustrating encounter.

[Pat B]

Cool stories John. You had lots more action than we did, already.
 It amazed me how strong I thought I was until I got to altitude and tried to do what I normally could do.
  Looking forward to "the rest of the story"!  ...and more pics.

[huntnmuleys]

this is awesome!  cant wait to read more.

[John Scifres]

5 minutes later we heard another group moving down the mountain.  Darren took up his original position only now I was the caller.  The herd of elk moved down a clearing directly downwind and as they hit our scent, they blew out of there.  Somewhere around 22 elk moved through without offering a shot to Darren.  We tried a couple more sequences but I guess 2 herds was all the mountain could hold        

We ended up hiking to the top of the mountain which had 2 rocky "peaks".  The shorter of the two was my mountain.

     

The second, higher peak was Darren's.

     

The temps had climbed to over 70 degrees by this time so we messed around, glassing and pondering our evening hunt.

     

Do you see that meadow about halfway up the opposite side of the creek?  It plays a large part in the evening activities.  In the meantime, we returned to camp and made a new friend.  This is "Camp Meat".  A young muley doe who was completely unconcerned about our presence.

     

She fed around our camp and in a small meadow right in front of our campfire for a very long time.  Darren was gonna offer her a cigar but she clearly has heard they are bad for you.

     

[Steve Kendrot]

Your killing me! I've been on CO four days now. Terrible weather so far, but it breaks tomorrow and we are headed back out to the back country. Hope to see my first elk of the trip. Been a lot of muzzleloader hunters out. Hopefully quieter next week. I'll have to catch your thread when we emerge from the woods later this week. Hopefully with a story of our own.

[Osagetree]

 More please!

[LoweBow]

[hayslope]

   

[slivrslingr]

[John Scifres]

After spending a little time resting and planning we headed up the mountain for the evening hunt.  There were several benches above camp including the one with that meadow on it.  We hiked up the trail and found where a game trail crossed it and followed it into the woods.  There was a lot of fresh sign on it so we decided a few blind calling sequences might work.  Darren was first up but my plaintive cow calls and whimpy bugle elicited no response.  

We moved a bit farther along the trail and set up again.  Darren started his sequence as I scanned the forest ahead.  Immediately after his first few calls, 2 heads popped up about 40 yards away.  They were eyeballing Darren's position really hard.  After a few more calls, a bull screamed a bit and the cows moved out.  He seemed to be assembling his harem.  We knew the meadow was several hundred yards ahead and assumed we would find them there.  The cow calls from Darren brought more bugles but nothing closer than before.

We assembled a little later and made the plan to ease along the trail and see what there was to see.  Glassing carefully revealed an opening far ahead and as we stalked up to it, we could see elk out in the meadow.  There were a couple cows and the bull visible to us.  They were feeding our way and were about 100 yards away.  As they dropped their heads to feed, we eased up to a spot that would allow them to feed to us with the wind and cover in our favor.  We assumed they would not come to calls so ambush might be in order.

Unfortunately, we had to cross a fairly open area and although we could see the elk in the meadow, those grazing unseen at the edge of the trees busted us and one barked and then they all went on alert.  They crashed up the mountain and out of our lives.

It was an exciting day of hunting and we assumed the week would allow us to zero in on the elk and be successful in the end.

[Pat B]

Even getting busted in elk country can be exciting. As long as this story is taking I assume the ending is even better than the rest of the story. d;^)

[Randy Morin]

Oh yeah.  Good stuff.  Lookin forward to some more.  Seems like you guys were in a pretty decent spot for sure.