Well, finally getting around to posting up a trip report of our Colorado deer hunting trip. With the holidays and late season archery hunting it took me a while to finally get the video and all the pictures edited.
We had a great trip with all 4 sons and dad hunting together for the first time other. My oldest brother Clint wasn't able to fly down to meet us until Wednesday night of the hunt but we were still all able to tag out except for my dad. A huge snow storm came through the weekend before we got there (we got there Sunday night) which really changed things up a bit. WE couldn't even get to where we were planning to camp and had camp set up in 25 inches of snow. All the spots we were told to hunt were completely snowed in and either inaccessible or mostly void of deer sign. We did find one spot early on where we saw some monster 190-200" bucks but they were always right over the fence on private land. We never caught them on public. That is one difficult part about these units in Colorado, you find these huge ranches (2000-5000 acres or more) in the middle of the National Forest and the deer know exactly where the fence line is!
In the end we got our first deer (a 2 point) on day 4 of the hunt. I have never shot a buck bigger than a spike and I did not want to go home empty handed so I was ready to shoot any buck. A 2 point walked out of the sage at 125 yards so I dropped him. Finally, the next day we found a new spot about 30 miles south of us and almost int he valley bottom. We would catch the deer coming up off the alfalfa fields right at daylight and get them in the public land. We ended up shooting 4 bucks within 300 yards of each other in 24 hours. One 2 point and 3 4 points that were probably all related. All in all it was a great hunt, but not our favorite unit to hunt. The cold temperatures (-10 at night) and high elevation definitely took a toll on my dad and uncle and they were ready to get out of there by the time everything was said and done. Enjoy the video - it is in 1080p if you go watch it on YouTube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9npGa4-HmcQ
We had a great trip with all 4 sons and dad hunting together for the first time other. My oldest brother Clint wasn't able to fly down to meet us until Wednesday night of the hunt but we were still all able to tag out except for my dad. A huge snow storm came through the weekend before we got there (we got there Sunday night) which really changed things up a bit. WE couldn't even get to where we were planning to camp and had camp set up in 25 inches of snow. All the spots we were told to hunt were completely snowed in and either inaccessible or mostly void of deer sign. We did find one spot early on where we saw some monster 190-200" bucks but they were always right over the fence on private land. We never caught them on public. That is one difficult part about these units in Colorado, you find these huge ranches (2000-5000 acres or more) in the middle of the National Forest and the deer know exactly where the fence line is!
In the end we got our first deer (a 2 point) on day 4 of the hunt. I have never shot a buck bigger than a spike and I did not want to go home empty handed so I was ready to shoot any buck. A 2 point walked out of the sage at 125 yards so I dropped him. Finally, the next day we found a new spot about 30 miles south of us and almost int he valley bottom. We would catch the deer coming up off the alfalfa fields right at daylight and get them in the public land. We ended up shooting 4 bucks within 300 yards of each other in 24 hours. One 2 point and 3 4 points that were probably all related. All in all it was a great hunt, but not our favorite unit to hunt. The cold temperatures (-10 at night) and high elevation definitely took a toll on my dad and uncle and they were ready to get out of there by the time everything was said and done. Enjoy the video - it is in 1080p if you go watch it on YouTube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9npGa4-HmcQ
