Hell yeah man!

I got a text from BradMtn346 this afternoon. He has been helping our buddy Ryan in unit 61. Ryan got a small 6x6 with his recurve this morning. No video of it but he says he has video of another that they called in. He won't be able to post anything until at least tomorrow, though.

Awesome!

Yessss

One less Elk in the world!

Hell yeah! Congrats man! Super cool

All the whiskey for you is rightl

Awesome, and congrats on the little one!

Great hunt, Congrats!

shaynew1 said:

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Double bull year baby! I hope to come back up here for rifle season to help put some hunters on some bulls. I might be a one too many drinks in so I can tell you guys, but we're gonna have a baby in march!!! So I have to get all the killing done this fall. I'm pretty sure I can sell one trip in the next 18 years, but I don't know about anything past that.

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fify

I bet it was fun while it lasted. See you in 2036.

It was fun

hopefully my wife has become too accustomed to eating elk to go without

Good news is maybe by then I will have forgotten how stupid elk hunting is and maybe I'll want to give it one more whirl before I die. We can team up.

Fall '36...put me down

Thanks for sharing the story. Great hunt! "equal opportunity killer", I love that! Perfectly describes my mindset. I almost exercised that right on a little mule deer buck last night, but he was 5 yards further than what I really wanted to shoot, so I held my ground.

Hell yeah.

Congrats man. Nothing tastes as good as game whacked w an arrow!

Runned and gunned and put some guys on a small bull today but they missed. after we jacked w the big one I missed yesterday. They haven't left out but they're a pretty savvy bunch.

Some rain is blowing in tonight. Hope to get a big one whacked tmw.

I'm worried I might be the only one prepared and pumped to get out in the crap. Supposed to rain all day tmw

YES

No one else wants to go out in the rain

In their defense it has now gotten pretty wild.

In their defense, it's not exactly fun. I toughed out half a day last year in rain and sleet while a front went through. I came to the conclusion nothing else was dumb enough to be out in it, why was I?

They elk are around. As soon as it lightens up a touch hopefully someone will want to go out.

Hot damn!

It's gettin good here hopefully we can get one of these other guys on one.

Awesome!

You're on a roll!

Well we came down off the mountain yesterday. What a trip. Had some serious up and downs but overall it was awesome!

Friday - Day 1: Got to the mountain later than planned so we just dropped camp by the truck and shot bows for the evening.
Saturday - Day 2: Packed everything up and headed in. Went about a mile in and decided to go ahead and drop camp and locate a good water source (easier said than done). Took us a good part of the day to finally find a small stream to fill up all our water from. We found a small water hole to sit for the evening, no luck there.
Sunday- Day 3: Finally set out in pairs to hunt at just before sunrise. Bulls had been bugling every morning and this one was the same. Had several bulls lighting up down the mountain from us. We did what we could to try and get to them but there was some serious scrub oak and brush that would rival the thickest brush I've been through in south Texas. Ended up finding an open spot about a 1/3 of the way down the mountain and did some glassing from there. Spotted an small fork horn (darn near a spike) about 200 yds straight across the valley from us. Watched him work and nibble on the brush for about 45 min. By that point the temps started to climb and he had worked on off so we worked back through the brush to the top. Took lunch and did some more waking around and cow calling. Winds picked up to 15-20 mph by the afternoon so we headed back to camp and stayed close to there for the evening. That night we had a bull bugling so close to our tents at about 1 am that it woke us all up. He had to have been within 100 yds. Pretty damn awesome.
Monday - Day 4: Set our minds to getting an early start and heading down the valley to the bottom below at sunlight. It was about a 1300 ft. drop and took us right at an hr and a half to get to the bottom. Found a carcass from a bull someone had shot probably first week of he season on our way down and tons of fresh sign. Right as we came out of the brush at the bottom and walked up to the small stream watched a good size bear swim across. Unfortunately my two buddies didn't buy their bear tags ahead of time and waited until we got up there to try and by them and they had sold out. So all we could do was watch it at about 35 yds. Ended up working down in the bottom all day and found some really beautiful country. Somewhere around mid morning we jumped a small legal bull. First spotted him at 175 yds as he was heading up the mountain. Got to watch him go up and over and decided the brush was too much to try and pursue him. About 3 we decided it was time to start our trek back to camp, this was where the worst part of the trip started. We were 50/50 between climbing back up the mountain we came down or going a mile further down and catching a road that wound around back to the top slowly. We decided walking the road would be easier although it would take us longer. Severely underestimated how long of a walk that would be. Long story short we ended up not getting back to camp until after 9 and had covered over 15 miles on the day. Absolutely beat us down. I don't think I've ever been so beat in my life. Big time learning experience the hard way.
Tuesday - Day 5: Wind was absolutely howling (35 mph gusts) and after the previous nights walk we slept in. One buddy had a cheaper tent and the wind ended up snapping two of his poles. Did not expect to have the wind that we saw from this point on. Did some driving around on the Polaris and 4 wheeler to try and get a better plan of attack for the next day. Loaded up on water and called it a day.
Wednesday - Day 6: Got up and got to the Polaris and drove down to the bottom to pack in to the spot we had dropped into on Monday. Walked about 2 miles in and it was absolutely silent. No bugles like we had been hearing each morning prior. Finally around 8 I let out a bugle and had 3 sound off almost immediately. Two off in the distance either direction and one directly up the mountain from us. He was about 1000 ft. straight up so I just kept calling to him every 5 min or so to see if he'd make a move. He was answering almost immediately every time and he started working towards the draw we dropped down Monday so we worked back to it to get into position for him to come down. Sure enough right when we get to it we hear him bugle about 1/4 of the way down the draw. He was coming! This was where I think we blew it. We tried to push in a little further and cut the distance down. In doing so we went right through a nice opening with great shooting lanes and favorable wind. Ended up getting into some very thick cover and had to try and set up best we could. We heard a chuckle within 150-200 yds so we dropped down and got ready. Cow called sparingly and waited. At one point we could hear footsteps but just never could get a visual because it was so thick. Wind started swirling and after 30 min of waiting we pulled back out. Not sure where he went but most likely caught our wind and headed back up. Little bit of a letdown but still damn exciting to call one down and get that close. Did more walking around and cow calling but the winds picked up about 10:30-11 (theme for the rest of the trip) and we had no luck.
Thursday - Day 7: Woke up to wind howling yet again (gusting up over 30 again). Decided to refill on water and make an evening hunt in hopes the wind would lay some. It did not. We got down to the bottom around 4 and hiked in. Made several cold calls with now luck. Small side story: The creek we were working along had several beaver damns and what not. Well as we are working between calling spots we walked up on its main area I guess and spooked it. Never knew a beaver could tail slap so damn loud. When we first heard it we thought a gun went off and about **** ourselves lol. It took it slapping a few more times before we fully realized what it was.
Friday - Day 7: Had originally planned to stay until Saturday but with the wind being like it was and rain forecasted for Saturday morning we decided to get things packed and get out before it got nasty. So this was our final day of the hunt. We got down to the same bottom to pack in about an hour before daylight. Got to the same draw we had been hunting and made some calls and mixed in a couple bugles. Absolutely silent. We were starting to check out mentally at this point to be honest. We kept moving and as we were working down the trail I spotted a 4X5 bull about halfway up the mountain straight across from us (same area we had jumped the bull Monday). He was in no hurry and showed no interest in cow calls so we dropped our packs and took off to make a move. (As we are dropping our packs we have a bear cross the trail about 40 yds in front of us, what are the odds?! Lol) We closed to about 180 yds directly below him and tried cow calling some more. No real interest and he was in a spot we could get no closer without giving up our cover. I decided to try some whiny cow calling and as soon as we went to that his interested peeked up and he started raking trees. He had been slowly working his way up the mountain but at this point he turned around and started slowly working back down. We had his full attention now and started to feel the excitement! I kept calling to him every couple of minutes and he kept slowly working down. Then it was like he decided it was time and he got more urgent and started moving quicker. We dropped back a bit (trying to learn from our previous mistake) and set up in a nice open spot. Had shooting lanes out to 35 yds in several directions. The bull got into the scrub oak and was just crashing through and in our mind we were a matter of seconds from having a shot. Heart was racing and he made a little turn seeming like he was headed towards my hunting partner (I could visibly see the brush moving as he was coming in) and then just stopped. We couldn't hear any more movement and thought he was just hung up so I went ahead and dropped back 30-40 yds (my hunting partner was about 30 yds to my right at this point) and cow called a bit more to try and draw him that last 10-15 yds into the open. Nothing. No movement. No crashing out. Not a sound. Wind was great until this point and then it started swirling. We waited and waited and waited. I kept sparingly calling with no luck. Our best guess is he caught a swirl of our scent and just silently backed out and went back up the mountain. So excruciatingly close and just couldn't get it to come together. We just sat there for a good 30 minutes after this about as defeated as it gets. So damn close on the final day of our hunt we could almost taste it!!
All in all it was a great trip! Only the second time I've ever actually been to Colorado. Beautiful, beautiful country. Learned a lot and will have a little better gameplan for next year. Physically I was in plenty good shape, but just the amount of miles each day finally caught up to me by the last day or two. We averaged between 7-10 miles a day and my lower legs let me know it lol. There were definitely plenty of campers and hunters off the main roads but all in all not as much hunting pressure as we had expected to run into. (I apologize in advance for any spelling or grammatical errors. I'm posting from my phone as we are driving home.)

This was the 4X5 we had closing down on us yesterday.