After dining on some not so delicious tag soup on a 2012 Colorado elk hunt, I found a new area that looked fun to try. After months of google earth research, and several PM's back and forth from Ivorytip, I had settled on the drainage I would hunt.
On our first afternoon, we packed in about 2 miles before finding a great vantage point. My brother and buddy set up the tents, while I grabbed my bino's.. Holy crap!! Elk! A bull!!! After spending a week in Colorado last year, and rarely seeing elk, it felt really good to spot this guy.
. We ended up seeing 9 more that night.
We camped for the night, and spent the better part of the next day getting further in, and wrapping around to the other side of the drainage where we first spotted the elk. We finally dropped down into the main canyon, as we were nearly out of water, and much to our dismay, the creek was dry.. WTF. We hiked another mile up the canyon, finally found water, and camped for the night.
The next morning, we climbed about 800 feet in elevation, set up on a bugling bull, and ended up calling in a 5 point to about 100 yards. He wanted to come in SO BAD, but just couldn't talk himself into it.
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For the next 4-5 days, we messed with these elk, hunting them very cautiously, to avoid bumping them out. On the 6th day of our hunt, we finally ran into our first people, two guides that advised they were bringing in two hunters on Sunday night, 3 days from now. Over the next few days, we would run into them every once in a while, and ended up talking to them quite a bit. They seemed like pretty good guys, so I told them that I would be hunting this area the next week, and told them the general area that I had been hunting, in hopes that we could all spread out, as we were the only ones in the canyon.
Friday night, day 7, we had an encounter with an awesome bull, I'm not going to pretend I'm an expert at scoring bulls, but this guy had a serious set of horns. He skirted around us, bugling every 100 yards or so. I tried to stalk along with him, but man those jokers can move through the timber.
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We took my buddy to the airport Saturday afternoon, making it back to camp on sunday night. Monday morning was the first day the guides would be taking their hunters. We woke early, to bulls bugling like crazy above us. We gained about 600 feet of elevation, and were now above a total rut fest, 5 bulls going absolutely nuts in a little drainage. The bulls bugled non stop until about 11am, when they went to bed about a half mile or so from us. We soon heard one of the guides bugling and cow calling below us, in the drainage the elk were currently in. As they moved closer, we decided to no longer play it safe, and tried to stalk the bulls in their beds, as it was just a matter of time before these elk blew out of the drainage.
By 12:30, we had gained elevation, got above the elk, and got the wind perfect, blowing right up the canyon, from them to us. As we kept closing the distance, the guide below us continued to do the same, bugling the whole way, which worked perfect, as it made our bull respond ever time. After what seemed like an eternity (kinda like this story), we were within 50 yards of the bull. The vegetation was so thick, we couldn't see him. At last I spotted him, 50 yards below us. I continued the stalk, as he suddenly started ramping up his bugling. At 40 yards his bugling was totally awesome. I made it to 32 yards when the bull stood up and started meandering around.
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I saw that he was going to walk through an opening, so I stood, stepped into a lane and drew. He walked into the opening, and a quartering away, downhill angle. A perfect shot for a guy used to sticking whitetails out of a treestand.
And then, a million things went through my mind... Oh wow, this thing is way bigger than a whitey, if I stick him here, I might only get one lung. Is one lung enough? I don't want to wound him. God, he's big.
And then he walked out of the opening. My heart sank. A cow walked right by me at 10 yards, I asked my brother if I should shoot her. "No way dude, that bull is still right there!"
We stood there for 20 minutes, watching bits and pieces of elk walking around through the timber, as the guide's bugling got closer and closer. Finally, the entire herd came blowing out from below us, running right by me. They had finally been spooked. Game over.
We stuck around for 2 more days, not hearing any more bugles, before we headed home.. It was my brothers first wedding anniversary, and I couldn't have him miss that!
All in all, this was easily the best tag soup I've ever eaten. We were into elk nearly every day, and if I had a rifle, I could have easily killed 3 6 points and 2 5 points. The weather was wonderful, except for a little bit of rain here and there, no one got hurt, and we spent a week and a half in an OTC unit, and only saw 2 other people the entire trip. Can't wait to get back.
