Map Study - Where to Hunt in Colorado

[cohunter14]

This is a map study we did a few years back. I\'m going to copy the info here so we can go through it again:

There has been a lot of questions going around about where to hunt in Colorado. How do you pick a unit and, once you do, where do you go? The CPW website has a lot of useful information to help you pick a unit including estimated herd sizes as well as estimated success rates for each season. These can help you get an idea on where to start. So, once you boil it down to a unit or two, where do you go from there?

The CPW has a hunting atlas available here: <!-- m --><a class=\"postlink\" href=\"http://ndis-flex.nrel.colostate.edu/HuntingAtlas/\" onclick=\"window.open(this.href);return false;\">http://ndis-flex.nrel.colostate.edu/HuntingAtlas/</a><!-- m -->. On this site, you can zoom into locations, toggle back and forth between aerial maps, topo maps, and a basic street map. You can also select a number of things that are relevant for finding elk, including summer ranges and concentration areas, winter ranges and concentration areas, as well as migration routes and corridors.

Here is a screen shot of a random area that I just pulled up. I covered up all of the relevant information using paint, so hopefully I am not giving away information on someone\'s honey hole

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You can see that I included all of the summer components for this area as well as the migration information. The basic pink area is the entire summer range, while the area with pink hash marks is the summer concentration area. These are defined by the CPW as follows:

Summer Range: That part of the range of a species where 90% of the individuals are located between spring green-up and the first heavy snowfall, or during a site specific period of summer as defined for each DAU. Summer range is not necessarily exclusive of winter range; in some areas winter range and summer range may overlap.

Summer Concentration: That part of the summer range of a species where densities are at least 200% greater than the surrounding summer range density.

 

[cohunter14]

So obviously, if you are going to be hunting archery season or one of the earlier rifle seasons, you are going to want to focus on the pink areas, with the hash mark areas being even better. So, let\'s take an area that has the high concentration and focus on that. Here are some zoomed in maps of the larger concentration area on the right. You will see a topo map with the \'game species\' transparency still high so you can see the hash marks and a topo map without the \'game species\' information.

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[cohunter14]

Next, here is the aerial view as well as the FS-MVUM map, which shows the motor vehicle access to the area:

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[cohunter14]

So, now lets turn this over to you all and make this a learning experience. You have all of this information on approximately a 60sq mile area here (10 miles x 6 miles). If you were heading into this area to scout or maybe you can\'t even scout and you are just heading in to hunt, what will your plan be? Where will you focus your time and why? What do you like and dislike about the area?

One thing I do want to point out is to ignore the elevations listed as they are not correct. I have no idea where those came from.

As a reminder, you can save this image to your computer, right click on it and click \'open with paint\' and you can mark this map up with anything you want. Save it and attach it in your post.

 

[cohunter14]

I know there are a lot of maps and added information here, but surely someone has an opinion on where to hunt... :?:

 

[Ol' Arky]

IMHO I don\'t know where I\'d end up hunting but I would start (since I wouldn\'t or didn\'t have a chance to boots on the ground scout) in and around the drainage with the pack trail...

Don\'t ask me why...

 

[Baby Huey]

I picked 5 spots to be potential hunting spots. The fist one, SPOT1, is sometimes overlooked at main trailheads at the end of a road and the start of a trailhead. Many people are stoked to get back in on the trails, that they can sometimes overlook spots very close to the truck. This little bench looks promising, and you could also easily climb to the top and check out the flatter sections of the mountain.

SPOT 2 is a little valley that looks like it would hold elk - they may bed in that steeper valley country and perhaps feed from the flatter areas to the NE of that mountain.

SPOT 3 Really can start at any of those drainages to the north. These are a bit off of the main trail, so I would look at those spots.

SPOTS 4 & 5 Look like good drainages with water.

 

[cohunter14]

Here is what I noticed on these maps. I placed a red circle in the upper left hand part of the map. From my count, there are six different roads that come to an end in this area with multiple pack trails coming off of them. This is where every person who wants to hunt a wilderness area to \"get away from other hunters\" will enter at. The problem? You have people all entering from the same location. I have never been in this area, but I can almost guarantee there are horse trailers and vehicles parked all over the place down there for any hunting season.

The blue circle and star shows where my area of focus would be. You can park off the side of a road and hunt for miles to the north. If you look at the map, it is almost 3 miles in before you reach that north facing slope. This is a lot of huntable land and you don\'t even have to be a mountain goat to hunt it. This area may not be in the \'summer concentration area\' but the majority of the pressure will be coming from the pack trail in the valley below as well as from that concentration area, pushing elk up into those flats. And to quote cnelk, \"ELF - Elk Love Flat\". I would let other hunters push the steep areas to the west and northwest and wait for the elk to show up. I would also be willing to bet that although it isn\'t a concentration area, there would be elk in there.

If I were wanting to bring camp on my back and pack in a few miles, the blue star would also be a great spot to leave from as opposed to the other pack trails to the north. I don\'t hunt wilderness areas, but if I ever did, I would use a strategy like this and enter from an area other than the end of a road or a trail head.

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