Have back, will travel...

Awesome! He's ballin already!

Congrats to the boy but I'd mix in some "Nature Boy" as well. Only seems fitting.

WOOOOOOOO!

Water Turkey07 said:

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I'm leaving in a few hours to head to the Flat Tops Wilderness for 1st rifle elk in Colorado. It's 26 degrees there right now. Thanks to a couple of posters on this thread for pointing me in the direction of this area. Hope to have some pics of antlers to show y'all next week and not just pictures of snowy mountains.

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Make sure and post up after the trip, I am headed that way for the fourth season. GOOD LUCK an stay safe.

Bump to see what you guys have going...

I'm heading out on Friday for CO.

Headed out late next week to NM 2B for a Mule Deer hunt.

Unfortunately, my house flooded a few weeks ago and I have had 0 time to e-scout. I also have not had time to look forward to the hunt which is unfortunate as I really like spending the whole month before a hunt anticipating it.

Leaving Wednesday for CO!

I'm headed to Unit 7/8 in northern CO just south of the WYO border for 3rd season. FIL has land there right next to Bull Mountain and there is lots of national forest and some BLM all around it . His place is in 8, but depending on the weather we may go over to 7 & and go into the Rawah Wilderness.

Heading south on Thursday to NM for my first speedgoat hunt.

I guess I'll be using my slingshot if I can't get this rifle squared away.

Quick question: Was it somewhere on this thread where one of you guys pointed out that in CO you need to carry your Hunter's Ed card with you, even though it is also listed on the license? Or did I make that up?

AgEng06 said:

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Quick question: Was it somewhere on this thread where one of you guys pointed out that in CO you need to carry your Hunter's Ed card with you, even though it is also listed on the license? Or did I make that up?

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Haha. Got the "week out shakes" I see.

Nah, I'm good with my card. Just making sure the others in my group are prepared.

But yes, otherwise I'm ready to freakin' go!

AgEng06 said:

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Quick question: Was it somewhere on this thread where one of you guys pointed out that in CO you need to carry your Hunter's Ed card with you, even though it is also listed on the license? Or did I make that up?

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Yes- in CO you must carry a physical copy of your Hunter's Ed, UNLESS you have verified and registered your Hunter's Ed with the DOW. I believe this requires actually visiting a DOW office, and they will verify and put it in the system. I do not know that you can do it online (correct me if wrong). It does have you put in a Hunter's Ed online when purchasing your license, this is NOT the same, as it is not verified. Lots of people get confused, and subsequently ticketed because of this. Easiest thing to do is just print a copy and put it with your license- then you know for sure you are good to go.

Thank you, sir.

When you get drawn and buy your tag online... do they send you a tag + license? or is the tag in essence your license? or do you have to then go and buy a Colorado license?

In my experience: They mail you your license & carcass tag all-in-one, similac to TX. It's all on one big green sheet printed together.

Unlike NM- where they seem to want to give you as many chances as possible to forget one or the other...

I still owe you guys a story. I try to recap in the next day or two

About to head to NM for my first ever pronghorn hunt... with no rifle. Put a new scope on it, and it still won't shoot a consistent group. No way I'm going to risk shooting a rifle I'm not 100% certain will go where I want it.

My father has a back up gun he is bringing for me (and has shot in to confirm it is on). I just HATE to hunt with a gun I haven't extensively practiced with at a multitude of ranges. I'm just going to have to stalk in as close as posisble, to minimize any variables. Luckily the gun is a mirror copy of mine, with same trigger and all- so it should shoot pretty darn close to the same.

For those experienced speedgoat hunters- is a 200 yard shot achievable, or am I dreaming?

I just hate heading out without confidence in my most crucial piece of equipment...

Do you like walking through brush without shoes? How do you feel about crawling long distances?

I learned about horse crippler cactus on my last pronghorn hunt!

AgLA06 said:

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Do you like walking through brush without shoes? How do you feel about crawling long distances?

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Right now I feel better about that than trying to shoot 400 yards with a rifle I never have shot before...

Might be a *****ley stalk it sounds like.

What is of most concern: their eyes, ears, or nose? I'm assuming it's those binocular eyes they have- but I have no idea how well they hear or smell?

200 is easily doable. Just stay low and use the terrain to your advantage so they can't get a good ID on you. If they haven't been hassled a bunch, even if they are curious, they are just going to stare at you as you close the distance. They tend to get flighty if they can readily identify you at a distance or you get within about 150 yards. Otherwise they tend to just stand there and stare at you.

I am a rookie with speedgoats. But it seemed like they're very confident in their eyesight and speed, while also being curious. Some of them didn't really haul ass completely, just scooted further along.

Sucks about the scope, though. That would piss me off something fierce.

Nice.

Opening morning, and I have newfound disdain for 4 wheelers.

Nice. The year of the pronghorn.

Nice! Congrats

Started this post a few times and never finished but 1st rifle elk in Colorado was rough for us. Our whole plan was to get packed in up high and hunt out of a drop camp at 11,200 pretty deep into a wilderness area. Feel like I stared at maps and images of the area within 3-4 miles of what was supposed to be our camp so much that it's burned into the back of my brain.

A few days before the hunt our packer calls and says they are watching a winter storm and may need to move us down. Sure enough 24 inches of snow get dropped "up top" where our camp was supposed to be and they move our tent to a basin around 9,800. According to the wranglers they were seeing sign when setting it up so spirits are still high.

We don't leave Houston until about 7:00PM Wednesday the 10th, drive through the night and have a cabin rented close to the trailhead we are supposed to be packed in on. We find out that the outfit is short on horses and since our new camp is only 2.5 miles from the trailhead, we decide to cooperate and hike in saving them some horses and have them pack in our gear.

arriving at cabin


Day before the season check our rifles, then start the hike in the snow to our camp. We cross into the wilderness area and spirits are still high.

About halfway to the tent we come across the wrangler who has already packed in our gear. He explains that all the snow collapsed our tent and that there is a rip. He apologizes and says he will come back as soon as he can to help but still has other pack-ins to make when he gets back.
State of our tent upon arrival.

First days firewood/water was also supposed to be there for us and it's nowhere to be found (we later discovered that wood was brought out but buried under the snow.

Can't stress how important it is to do trips like this with a good group of guys. The *****ing and moaning was kept to a minimum and in a couple hours we had the tend uncovered and erect (that's what she said) in enough time to do some scouting before sundown.


There was plenty of elk sign in the snow in our basin. This whole area was hit by a big fire in 2002 so it's majority deadfall with fingers of timber mixed in. The sign had me convinced they were still in the basin and opening day I hit every piece of timber in it looking for elk. Even hiked up and across a boulder field to get to some high timber that in hindsight was really stupid to do by myself.



In the back of this basin by the pictures above there were tracks on tracks on tracks. It snowed about an inch over night and into the next morning and 3 of us hiked to the back of the basin again.

All of the old sign was covered up and there was no new sign. It was becoming obvious that all of the sign we say opening day was a couple of days old and they elk had moved even lower and out of our basin. We hiked back to the tent for lunch and the other two in our group confirmed no new sign. The forecast for that night was 4 degrees. We had been having trouble keeping the fire stoked the first two nights and when our propane heaters would run out no one would want to get out of their bags to put a new one in making the 20 degree nights pretty rough so 4 degrees with no elk sign around made us decide to fill our packs with some essentials and pack back to the lodge.

The scuttlebutt at the lodge confirmed what we were thinking, elk were down lower and all the four wheeler/day hunters I was trying to avoid by going up high were putting the smack down on them.

We still had a lot of our gear left at the tent but were able to secure a cabin(s) for the rest of the season and decided to hunt out of the truck down at lower elevation.

This was the right choice but I was totally unprepared for this and in hindsight was one of the major things I would have changed. I've been an e-scouting junkie the last few months but had only really looked at the direct area around where I thought I would be hunting. No service where we were and I had only downloaded the maps on my onx app for that direct area and not the whole unit so navigating was tough. In hindsight I wish I would have had several back up plans in place if the weather didn't cooperate as we spent a lot of time just winging it.

Long-story short we put in some serious miles the rest of the season but by this time the weather was clearing and we weren't sure if the elk were going back up high or what. Day 4 we finally get into a couple cows and hunted a great looking burn edge as the sun went down but no bulls showed.



0-5 makes for a lot of tag soup, but I definitely didn't get it out of my system. Didn't have any elk experience so one of the few things I knew I could control was my conditioning and was not disappointed in how my body performed at all. Never really had issues with the altitude and was able to hike up/down through deadfall all day. Was pretty happy with my gear choices as well (Kifaru gun-bearer is great).

Not sure exactly where I'll be next fall but it will be in elk woods somewhere.

Yeah, that looks a lot different than when LaAg06 and I showed up in '16.

Propane heaters? Yeeesh. We just fired up the stove in the morning. Granted, even with wet wood, getting a fire going isn't a huge challenge for us.

I saw the winter storm, and was curious how it impacted you. It did.

that's rough. In my opinion hunting public land is all about having back-up plans but that's tough when you're working with an outfitter. Sounds like yall scoured the mountains and had a great trip though! Hope the outfitter cut you a break, considering the hike in and collapsed tent the wrangler left you with

Damn.

Thats a tough pill to swallow. You guys put yourself in the exact position you needed to be in for a typical 1st rifle.

Then the non-typical happened.

Huge snow. Moved the elk out. And you're right - every road hunting, ATV running, walk 100 yards off the road kind of hunter got into elk during the CO 1st rifle. Everyone in CO that I've heard from - guides to hunters to locals - says that 1st rifle was a blood bath. Many, many years of hot, dry weather and boom - a big time early snow. Thats really crappy luck for your crew and the plans y'all made.

Here's the upside - You learned about staying mobile on public land hunts. Doing a drop camp in deep always sounds really good - but it commits you for 2 days minimum. If you only have 5 or 6 to hunt, thats a big gash in the time you have left to find new country, new sign, etc.

My group has done something similar. Not a drop camp - but picked a spot and set up a big camp. Only to learn within 12 hours that the elk aren't there. IMO - the best way to hunt CO pub land that you've only seen on a map - is to go in with a spike camp mentality. Meaning, I'm either here for 6 hours or 6 days. Either way, I'm prepared to move, or stay, or some combination.

In the mean time, I bet you got some good stories with your buddies and y'all tested some gear for cold and snow!

If it helps any, I'm 0-3 on public land elk in CO.

First time I ever hunted, first day, I had a shot at bull. And missed.

I haven't seen a bull since that first day, first trip. Lots of miles hiked since then, and no antler in my binos or scope.