Well we\'re on our way back down the mountain so I\'ll try and recap our days on the hill as best I can. We were only able to hunt last sat-Mon morning and this weekend due to my buddies work liabilities and my new english setter puppy arriving at home.
The first weekend was spent in my \"honey hole\" I posted about earlier this summer and it was QUIET. I was very surprised with the lack of elk activity compared to what we normally see during rifle season. In total I think we heard 3 bugles. Half hearted ones at that. We were able to make one stalk on a bull that didn\'t work out due to wind. About 30 min after that I was being laxidasical with my still hunting and my buddy stopped me and said he said somethin dark walking ahead of us. He was convinced it was jet black in color though and we had just ran into a bull moose prior to that, so we assumed it was him. 5 steps later apparently there was a cow elk 15 yards from me that busted down the hill never to be seen again. Lesson learned. Stupid mistake. The following 2 days were similar but with no close encounters. We tried cold calling setups, still hunting, you name it. The elk just weren\'t where I\'m used to finding them.
Fast forward to yesterday. Came back up and hunted the same area with similar results. Decided to go into town for a beer and dinner after the evening hunt and chatted with a young gentleman who was getting into elk every morning in an area I\'m very familiar with but it\'s always loaded with hunters and roads, I was very skeptical. He was extremely generous with his info and basically said, go here park there and you\'ll hear them going nuts at sun rise. We figured we didn\'t have anything to lose and tried it out this morning...
Holy crap. That\'s how ill sum up this morning. We parked and sat and listened close to where he said till legal shooting light and hadn\'t heard a peep. We were both on the verge of saying screw it, but I to out of the truck, through my pack on and said lets climb this small ridge and give it a shot. 15-20 min later we crested the top and no sooner than I took my pack off a bugle rang out just below us on the other side down the ridge. The next 30 min were filled with 3-4 bulls screaming at each other! It was intense. Every time we hit the cow call or bugled it elicited a response. I saw a heard of cows up above us about 600 yards away just starin down below watching it all unfold. We were never presented with a shot and in hind sight we should have pressed on a little harder and \"closed the distance\" more and I think we could have gotten a shot off. But man those bugles sounded so loud and appeared closer than I think they actually were so I was afraid I was already on top of them and didn\'t want to blow the situation. They disappeared as quickly as they showed up and that was that.
I couldn\'t have asked for a better way to end the hunt. We were finally able to put ourselves in a situation surrounded by bugling bulls and that\'s what keeps me coming back for more. I\'m going to try and give it one more go solo next weekend but my buddy was muzzleloader hunting so his tag is over after today. Why does it seem to always go down on the last day before it have to go back to work? Haha. Anyways hope everybody else still out there is having better luck, the rut just seems to be starting in my area in north central colorado.
Any spelling errors are courtesy of my iphone. hah
The first weekend was spent in my \"honey hole\" I posted about earlier this summer and it was QUIET. I was very surprised with the lack of elk activity compared to what we normally see during rifle season. In total I think we heard 3 bugles. Half hearted ones at that. We were able to make one stalk on a bull that didn\'t work out due to wind. About 30 min after that I was being laxidasical with my still hunting and my buddy stopped me and said he said somethin dark walking ahead of us. He was convinced it was jet black in color though and we had just ran into a bull moose prior to that, so we assumed it was him. 5 steps later apparently there was a cow elk 15 yards from me that busted down the hill never to be seen again. Lesson learned. Stupid mistake. The following 2 days were similar but with no close encounters. We tried cold calling setups, still hunting, you name it. The elk just weren\'t where I\'m used to finding them.
Fast forward to yesterday. Came back up and hunted the same area with similar results. Decided to go into town for a beer and dinner after the evening hunt and chatted with a young gentleman who was getting into elk every morning in an area I\'m very familiar with but it\'s always loaded with hunters and roads, I was very skeptical. He was extremely generous with his info and basically said, go here park there and you\'ll hear them going nuts at sun rise. We figured we didn\'t have anything to lose and tried it out this morning...
Holy crap. That\'s how ill sum up this morning. We parked and sat and listened close to where he said till legal shooting light and hadn\'t heard a peep. We were both on the verge of saying screw it, but I to out of the truck, through my pack on and said lets climb this small ridge and give it a shot. 15-20 min later we crested the top and no sooner than I took my pack off a bugle rang out just below us on the other side down the ridge. The next 30 min were filled with 3-4 bulls screaming at each other! It was intense. Every time we hit the cow call or bugled it elicited a response. I saw a heard of cows up above us about 600 yards away just starin down below watching it all unfold. We were never presented with a shot and in hind sight we should have pressed on a little harder and \"closed the distance\" more and I think we could have gotten a shot off. But man those bugles sounded so loud and appeared closer than I think they actually were so I was afraid I was already on top of them and didn\'t want to blow the situation. They disappeared as quickly as they showed up and that was that.
I couldn\'t have asked for a better way to end the hunt. We were finally able to put ourselves in a situation surrounded by bugling bulls and that\'s what keeps me coming back for more. I\'m going to try and give it one more go solo next weekend but my buddy was muzzleloader hunting so his tag is over after today. Why does it seem to always go down on the last day before it have to go back to work? Haha. Anyways hope everybody else still out there is having better luck, the rut just seems to be starting in my area in north central colorado.
Any spelling errors are courtesy of my iphone. hah
