This story and elk came from 2014 when I cashed in 17 points for a unit 61 muzzle loader hunt in Colorado.
Enjoy.
This elk hunt has been in the process for 17 years as I accumulated preference points in the hopes of being able to draw a tag in one of the coveted units where monsters roamed the hills. In the last couple of years I had been looking at the number of points to draw a muzzle loader tag for some of the premier units here in Colorado and finally came to the realization that I just didn?t have enough and didn?t want to wait another 5 plus years to draw one in the North West corner of the state, so I decided to put in for a muzzle loader tag in unit 61 with 17 points where last year it only took 14. Now unit 61 has some good bulls but I would come to find out that the vast majority of them are in the 320-350 inch range with some but not many going larger. So last February I put in my application with the Colorado Parks and Wildlife for a muzzle loader tag in unit 61 knowing that I was almost assured a tag for this year. Now as a lot of you know the Colorado Parks and Wildlife has some problems on the unofficial posting of the draw results and while I was pretty sure that I would draw the actual realization was yet to come. Once June was here and I saw the official results of the draw I knew that I had my tag. So let the planning and scouting begin.
I had never been to this unit before. I had driven around it but never step foot in it. A friend of mine had hunted it before during the archery season and when I told him that I had drawn the muzzle loader tag he just started to laugh. He also had put in for another archery tag after accumulating enough points and that he also had drawn the tag that he had applied for. Unit 61 look out because the fantastic dual were about to swoop down upon you and do our best.
My first scouting trip was just after July 4th after some of the holiday traffic had gone away. Doug had hunted the Red Creek Canyon area on his previous hunt and knew that there should be some good bulls in that area and may be overlooked by others that might have one of the coveted tags. Since he was working in Moab, Utah we decided to meet at the corner of the Nucla and the Divide road. I had never been there and had no idea of how long it would take for me to actually get there until after that first trip. I ended up having to wait a couple of hours for him to get there but we were soon on our way south. This first trip we spent 4 days in the Red Creek Canyon and Little Red Creek Canyon watching the bulls as their antlers grew a little bit more each day. We then started to head north on the Divide Road spending a day each time we stopped looking the area over and seeing a few more bulls. This went on for the whole scouting trip with me getting familiar with the area. We then planned out a couple more trips of 5 days each and pretty much following the same routine as we were looking for a wall hanger for both of us to take home. We traveled as far as the 47 Trail Road before going back to the south end to check it out again. On our last trip we decided that the Red Creek Canyon area was where we wanted to be. Now the wait unit the hunt started.
In the mean time I was trying to decide on which weapon to take down with me. My T/C Triumph .50 caliber in line or my old trusty and true T/C Renegade in .54 caliber. Each session at the target range made me wonder which one would be best. On my final trip the Triumph shot a 3? group at 100 yards shooting 85 grains of Black Horn 209 powder and a 300 grain Thor solid copper hollow point bullet. I loaded up my .54 with my tried and true load of 90 grains of Pyrodex and a 430 grain hand casted Maxi-Ball and took steady aim. The first shot was just inside the outer edge of a 3? bulls eye. The second shot was also in the black but 180 degrees off of the first. Then the next two shots made almost a perfect square of the 4 shots, I had found my loads but not my hunting rifle. So I did what any abnormal person would do and took both. Now for the hunt.
Unknown to me Doug had taken the whole week off before the muzzle loader hunt to see if he could stick a bull with an arrow before I arrived. I got a call at 6pm on the 11th with him saying that he would meet me at the intersection of the Divide Road and 25 Mesa Road. He had been hunting in the Red Canyons area and said that for some reason a lot of the elk had moved out with him only seeing a few during the week and that we should go with option two. So much for planning and scouting. We camped on the Cotton Wood Road just off of the Divide Road in unit 62 to throw off any one thinking that we knew what we were doing. I now think that it confused us just as much as anyone else. We took a hike Friday morning into Tabernash Canyon to see what we could see. We hadn?t gone more than a few hundred yards when we jumped a bull and a cow. We only say his antlers as he disappeared into the woods but he looked like a nice bull. We then worked our way through some ledges and down onto a bench where we started to see bulls and l mean lots of bulls. None were what you would call shooters but the majority of them were respectable. Now we just had 11 hours to wait for daylight and to let the fun begin.
Enjoy.
This elk hunt has been in the process for 17 years as I accumulated preference points in the hopes of being able to draw a tag in one of the coveted units where monsters roamed the hills. In the last couple of years I had been looking at the number of points to draw a muzzle loader tag for some of the premier units here in Colorado and finally came to the realization that I just didn?t have enough and didn?t want to wait another 5 plus years to draw one in the North West corner of the state, so I decided to put in for a muzzle loader tag in unit 61 with 17 points where last year it only took 14. Now unit 61 has some good bulls but I would come to find out that the vast majority of them are in the 320-350 inch range with some but not many going larger. So last February I put in my application with the Colorado Parks and Wildlife for a muzzle loader tag in unit 61 knowing that I was almost assured a tag for this year. Now as a lot of you know the Colorado Parks and Wildlife has some problems on the unofficial posting of the draw results and while I was pretty sure that I would draw the actual realization was yet to come. Once June was here and I saw the official results of the draw I knew that I had my tag. So let the planning and scouting begin.
I had never been to this unit before. I had driven around it but never step foot in it. A friend of mine had hunted it before during the archery season and when I told him that I had drawn the muzzle loader tag he just started to laugh. He also had put in for another archery tag after accumulating enough points and that he also had drawn the tag that he had applied for. Unit 61 look out because the fantastic dual were about to swoop down upon you and do our best.
My first scouting trip was just after July 4th after some of the holiday traffic had gone away. Doug had hunted the Red Creek Canyon area on his previous hunt and knew that there should be some good bulls in that area and may be overlooked by others that might have one of the coveted tags. Since he was working in Moab, Utah we decided to meet at the corner of the Nucla and the Divide road. I had never been there and had no idea of how long it would take for me to actually get there until after that first trip. I ended up having to wait a couple of hours for him to get there but we were soon on our way south. This first trip we spent 4 days in the Red Creek Canyon and Little Red Creek Canyon watching the bulls as their antlers grew a little bit more each day. We then started to head north on the Divide Road spending a day each time we stopped looking the area over and seeing a few more bulls. This went on for the whole scouting trip with me getting familiar with the area. We then planned out a couple more trips of 5 days each and pretty much following the same routine as we were looking for a wall hanger for both of us to take home. We traveled as far as the 47 Trail Road before going back to the south end to check it out again. On our last trip we decided that the Red Creek Canyon area was where we wanted to be. Now the wait unit the hunt started.
In the mean time I was trying to decide on which weapon to take down with me. My T/C Triumph .50 caliber in line or my old trusty and true T/C Renegade in .54 caliber. Each session at the target range made me wonder which one would be best. On my final trip the Triumph shot a 3? group at 100 yards shooting 85 grains of Black Horn 209 powder and a 300 grain Thor solid copper hollow point bullet. I loaded up my .54 with my tried and true load of 90 grains of Pyrodex and a 430 grain hand casted Maxi-Ball and took steady aim. The first shot was just inside the outer edge of a 3? bulls eye. The second shot was also in the black but 180 degrees off of the first. Then the next two shots made almost a perfect square of the 4 shots, I had found my loads but not my hunting rifle. So I did what any abnormal person would do and took both. Now for the hunt.
Unknown to me Doug had taken the whole week off before the muzzle loader hunt to see if he could stick a bull with an arrow before I arrived. I got a call at 6pm on the 11th with him saying that he would meet me at the intersection of the Divide Road and 25 Mesa Road. He had been hunting in the Red Canyons area and said that for some reason a lot of the elk had moved out with him only seeing a few during the week and that we should go with option two. So much for planning and scouting. We camped on the Cotton Wood Road just off of the Divide Road in unit 62 to throw off any one thinking that we knew what we were doing. I now think that it confused us just as much as anyone else. We took a hike Friday morning into Tabernash Canyon to see what we could see. We hadn?t gone more than a few hundred yards when we jumped a bull and a cow. We only say his antlers as he disappeared into the woods but he looked like a nice bull. We then worked our way through some ledges and down onto a bench where we started to see bulls and l mean lots of bulls. None were what you would call shooters but the majority of them were respectable. Now we just had 11 hours to wait for daylight and to let the fun begin.
