Placeholder for CO muzzleloader bull. Heading back out to help a friend fill his tag. Solo diy on public.
The story:
I decided to backpack into a wilderness area where I'd done a scouting trip a week before, during the archery opener, and took a long, circuitous route to a meadow where I'd seen a really nice 6x6 on that trip. I figured it was a long shot he was still there. He could've been found and shot by an archery hunter, pushed by pressure, or wandered off to find cows. But he was good enough that I wanted to make the energy investment to go check.
As I finally rounded a spot and worked my way through a bunch of willows in the meadow to see into where he'd been, the first thing I noticed was a mule tied up in the same meadow. So I crossed back over the stream to the trail, which runs on the same side as the meadow, and ended up talking to the guy who'd brought the mules in. He was running camp for his nephew, who had an archery tag. We chatted for a bit about how Colorado compares to other western states, then I moved to a midpoint area beneath a plateau to hunt and set up camp for the night.
On opening day I woke up at 4:00 a.m., packed up camp, and did the roughly 800-ft climb in well under a mile up onto the plateau. I was up there 45 minutes before legal shooting light and had a dilemma: the area I wanted to go to was on my left, but I was hearing bugles on my right. I worked toward the bugles and listened for a while. It sounded like a couple of bulls were bugling over there, with the closest one convincing me he was actually a hunter. I haven't heard many elk run out of breath in the middle of a bugle.
So I looked back toward my original plan, and even a few minutes before first shooting light I could make out elk 800 yards out through my binoculars in the dark. I started working my way over toward the area I'd seen them feeding in on the scouting trip, staying near cows and some small bulls as they fed into that same area. When I got to where I could see it, there were 15 or 20 elk there a couple of smaller bulls with the group and then a large-sounding bull bugling from the timber in the bottom, out of my sightline from where the elk were feeding.
I decided to do a big loop around to get on the slope behind them, counting on them feeding through a saddle into some north-facing timber. I could've approached a different way, but swirling wind and a lack of visual cover made me choose the longer route. As it turned out, I was about 10 or 15 minutes too late. By the time I approached the saddle from below, the elk were already in the timber and took off. I went up to the top of the saddle anyway and set up in case there were any stragglers or satellite bulls interested in following the herd.
While I was sitting there contemplating my failure, I started glassing the other side of the valley, tucked back into a drainage full of big beaver ponds and willows. I saw about 15 or 20 cows hanging out with one or two smaller bulls, but then another group of 15 or 20 elk fed down the slope quickly and mingled with them and that's when I saw the bull I ultimately killed, who I'm about 50% convinced was the one bugling from the bottom during my morning attempt. I watched them feed up the meadow and into a really large patch of pine and spruce.
My plan was to move to one of three spots I thought they might feed out to that evening, hoping they'd come out in front of me for a shot. I dropped back down into the valley and started the climb up to where I thought they'd be. By the time I was getting close to the top, it was around 2:00 or 3:00 p.m., and suddenly I started hearing bugles getting closer and closer as I climbed. It became clear the bull was out there with his cows in the feeding area, already in full sun in the middle of the day.
As I approached, I slowed way down, glassing through gaps in the relatively sparse tree cover and starting to pick up elk movement through the branches. The bugles kept getting closer, and I realized he was working the herd from my side meaning he was between the herd and me. Couldn't get much better than that for something I'd figured was a 5-10% chance to begin with.
I crested a rise and finally saw him at 76 yards out. I already had my muzzleloader in one hand and my trekking poles, straps looped together, in the other. As I moved to get a shot, he caught a little bit of movement out of the corner of his eye (his head was mostly behind a tree) and he spooked and ran off a bit. But since he hadn't winded or heard me, just caught that bit of movement, he wanted to see what I was and stopped in a window in the trees. I had about a 2-ft-wide window and could just see the edge of his vitals through it at 100 yards. I shifted over to my best shooting lane, set my muzzleloader on my trekking poles, and squeezed off the shot.
It was probably 3 seconds from him stepping into the window to me firing, so it happened fast, and I wasn't 100% confident I'd made the hit I wanted. He turned away from the direction he'd been facing at the shot, so I couldn't see if there was blood from an entrance wound, though it looked like he was favoring that leg a little as he ran off.
Given all that, I set a timer for about 45 minutes and waited. After about 30 minutes I couldn't take it anymore, so I went up to the spot where he'd been standing at the shot to get a good feel for his hoofprints before starting to blood-track. Then I noticed I could already see blood from where I was standing, so I started following it and with each step, the blood got easier and easier to see. It wasn't a ton, but it showed up clearly on the rocks and sand.
Then I got to a spot where the trail turned 90 degrees instead of continuing uphill, it headed downhill. All of this happened within maybe 20-30 yards. I followed it down after the turn, saw a couple more drops of blood, looked up, and he was laying there dead right in front of me, in full sun.
Some learnings and takeaways from this hunt:
The story:
I decided to backpack into a wilderness area where I'd done a scouting trip a week before, during the archery opener, and took a long, circuitous route to a meadow where I'd seen a really nice 6x6 on that trip. I figured it was a long shot he was still there. He could've been found and shot by an archery hunter, pushed by pressure, or wandered off to find cows. But he was good enough that I wanted to make the energy investment to go check.
As I finally rounded a spot and worked my way through a bunch of willows in the meadow to see into where he'd been, the first thing I noticed was a mule tied up in the same meadow. So I crossed back over the stream to the trail, which runs on the same side as the meadow, and ended up talking to the guy who'd brought the mules in. He was running camp for his nephew, who had an archery tag. We chatted for a bit about how Colorado compares to other western states, then I moved to a midpoint area beneath a plateau to hunt and set up camp for the night.
On opening day I woke up at 4:00 a.m., packed up camp, and did the roughly 800-ft climb in well under a mile up onto the plateau. I was up there 45 minutes before legal shooting light and had a dilemma: the area I wanted to go to was on my left, but I was hearing bugles on my right. I worked toward the bugles and listened for a while. It sounded like a couple of bulls were bugling over there, with the closest one convincing me he was actually a hunter. I haven't heard many elk run out of breath in the middle of a bugle.
So I looked back toward my original plan, and even a few minutes before first shooting light I could make out elk 800 yards out through my binoculars in the dark. I started working my way over toward the area I'd seen them feeding in on the scouting trip, staying near cows and some small bulls as they fed into that same area. When I got to where I could see it, there were 15 or 20 elk there a couple of smaller bulls with the group and then a large-sounding bull bugling from the timber in the bottom, out of my sightline from where the elk were feeding.
I decided to do a big loop around to get on the slope behind them, counting on them feeding through a saddle into some north-facing timber. I could've approached a different way, but swirling wind and a lack of visual cover made me choose the longer route. As it turned out, I was about 10 or 15 minutes too late. By the time I approached the saddle from below, the elk were already in the timber and took off. I went up to the top of the saddle anyway and set up in case there were any stragglers or satellite bulls interested in following the herd.
While I was sitting there contemplating my failure, I started glassing the other side of the valley, tucked back into a drainage full of big beaver ponds and willows. I saw about 15 or 20 cows hanging out with one or two smaller bulls, but then another group of 15 or 20 elk fed down the slope quickly and mingled with them and that's when I saw the bull I ultimately killed, who I'm about 50% convinced was the one bugling from the bottom during my morning attempt. I watched them feed up the meadow and into a really large patch of pine and spruce.
My plan was to move to one of three spots I thought they might feed out to that evening, hoping they'd come out in front of me for a shot. I dropped back down into the valley and started the climb up to where I thought they'd be. By the time I was getting close to the top, it was around 2:00 or 3:00 p.m., and suddenly I started hearing bugles getting closer and closer as I climbed. It became clear the bull was out there with his cows in the feeding area, already in full sun in the middle of the day.
As I approached, I slowed way down, glassing through gaps in the relatively sparse tree cover and starting to pick up elk movement through the branches. The bugles kept getting closer, and I realized he was working the herd from my side meaning he was between the herd and me. Couldn't get much better than that for something I'd figured was a 5-10% chance to begin with.
I crested a rise and finally saw him at 76 yards out. I already had my muzzleloader in one hand and my trekking poles, straps looped together, in the other. As I moved to get a shot, he caught a little bit of movement out of the corner of his eye (his head was mostly behind a tree) and he spooked and ran off a bit. But since he hadn't winded or heard me, just caught that bit of movement, he wanted to see what I was and stopped in a window in the trees. I had about a 2-ft-wide window and could just see the edge of his vitals through it at 100 yards. I shifted over to my best shooting lane, set my muzzleloader on my trekking poles, and squeezed off the shot.
It was probably 3 seconds from him stepping into the window to me firing, so it happened fast, and I wasn't 100% confident I'd made the hit I wanted. He turned away from the direction he'd been facing at the shot, so I couldn't see if there was blood from an entrance wound, though it looked like he was favoring that leg a little as he ran off.
Given all that, I set a timer for about 45 minutes and waited. After about 30 minutes I couldn't take it anymore, so I went up to the spot where he'd been standing at the shot to get a good feel for his hoofprints before starting to blood-track. Then I noticed I could already see blood from where I was standing, so I started following it and with each step, the blood got easier and easier to see. It wasn't a ton, but it showed up clearly on the rocks and sand.
Then I got to a spot where the trail turned 90 degrees instead of continuing uphill, it headed downhill. All of this happened within maybe 20-30 yards. I followed it down after the turn, saw a couple more drops of blood, looked up, and he was laying there dead right in front of me, in full sun.
Some learnings and takeaways from this hunt:
- The scouting trip I did was huge for my confidence in my physical abilities. I covered 22 miles and gained 4400ft of elevation in a little under 24 hours including sleep. All of this was above 10k in elevation. I knew I could go anywhere I could conceivably get an elk out.
- Backpacking in and moving with camp on my back was a big energy saver vs starting every day with a 3+ mile hike and 1300 ft of vert to even get to where most of the elk were. My friend Cory started in a lower area that has great elk numbers before season, but saw more hunters than elk in there during his first 2 days of hunting.
- Being in my hunt area at night was also good, I was hearing bugles from multiple bulls at night and had a good idea how they were moving in those hours.
- I've shot 3 of my last 4 animals off of trekking poles with the straps looped over the opposite handle. I have wiser precision quick stix on my poles, but they suck for quickly adjusting elevation.
- Hornady ELD X muzzleloader bullets work about like ELDMs do in my centerfire rifle. They hit, fragment, cause massive damage, and still penetrate enough. This wasn't a pass through, but the bull was dead within about 70 yds. If i'd paid closer attention to a dead tree I was using a reference point he was standing in front of at the shot, I'd have seen his antler sticking up as I walked up to where he was standing when hit.
