Scouting Trip Reports

I went up last Thursday night, got camp set up around 11:30 p.m. Alarm went off at 5 and out I went. Set up 5 game cameras on Friday, one tree stand and reconstructed 1 ground blind. I also prepped one spot for a tree stand. Didn\'t see any animals other than a couple deer. This isn\'t uncommon, I take my dog with me when I go and she pretty much runs 100-200 yard circles around me, basically clearing the area of all big game animals. I don\'t take her in August when I am checking cams close to the season but this early on she gets to run. I did see 3 branch bulls not far from camp driving in on Thursday night.

Saturday morning I got up again at 5 and set up one camera and built a ground blind, no tree for a stand at this spot. Went back to camp to meet up with my dad, brother and they brought up my oldest son with them. We then went and set 5 more cameras, 4 stands and a cleared one for a pop up ground blind.

Saturday evening had a great conversation with Olympushunt, Swede and one of Oly\'s friends. Really looking forward to joining in camp with these guys this year. Shared some stories, information about what we had been seeing and where we were setting stands.

Sunday we set one more stand on the way out. So 11 cameras and 6 stands and prepped a couple spots for ground blinds. This was my third trip out there this year, I won\'t go back now till the weekend before the opener to check cams.

Cams are out, it must be getting close!!!!!!
 
Location: CO Central Mountains, West of the Continental Divide. 10,000 to 10,700 ft.

Dates: mid-July, Thursday night through Saturday night.

Primary Mission: Check trail cameras. Relocate Trail Cameras. Shoot Broadheads. Chat with part time hunting partner and show him a good spot near the road.

Vegetation is lush. I stayed below timberline and away from where most of the elk are located at this time.

Seasonal Creeks are flowing very well. No sign of seasonal creeks running dry. Regular creeks are down a little from mid-June, however, they are higher than usual.

Snow: lots of snow above timberline. Some of it may never melt this year.

Forest Service Road: In June, it was in great shape. Now, it is rutted worse than I have ever seen it. The dump trucks were out hauling dirt for this year\'s grading. They are grading it next week.

There wasn\'t anyone out. No ATVs, no dirt bikes, no mountain bikes. Very odd. I wonder if the bugs are keeping people away. Perhaps the piles of ungraded dirt made it too dangerous.

For 2 of my trail cameras, I blew it. The grass grew so tall in front of them that it often triggered the cameras. Fortunately, the SD card did not fill up. This is my 3rd summer using cameras. Eventually, I will learn the technique for setting them up. So far, the results are promising.

Big surprise: 2 young bulls down at 2 of my 10,500 ft trail cameras in mid-June. This area has lots of small meadows with high lush grass and seasonal creeks though them. I knew the bulls came down there as early as August. They go back up in the mornings to bed. I did not expect to see them that low in mid-June, however, the snow pack was down to 11,000 ft in mid-June.

It is too early in my area for the cows and calves to appear on my trail cameras. Right now, they are closer to the calving area. They start to appear in my hunting area in August.

For my first 3 years, I put way too much emphasis on the fresh sign I found in mid-Summer. For my area, that is only useful into opening week. I have since concentrated on finding the cows in August.

Lots of deer. This year, I have a mule deer tag where I hunt elk.

Friday morning, 2 bull moose popped onto the road. They started galloping away. I can\'t see that far down the road, so I caught up to them. I had to crawl and pause for 1/2 mile to avoid stressing them. They would not leave the road. They frequently stopped to look at me. It was fun from the safety of my SUV.

Yellow bellied marmots. There is no shortage of marmots. They are everywhere.

Brook Trout. Many more brookies than in mid-June. The ponds had loads of them.

My 3rd and final trip is in mid-August. My most intense scouting trip is in August, therefore, I don\'t do much wandering in mid-Summer. I want to find the cows in August. I leave the ridges to the youngsters dead set on going up there opening weekend to bugle their heads off. They very nicely push the elk down to me ;)
 
Great report, mtnmutt.

Im very excited that you are seeing a lot of deer.
I know it\'s not your primary goal, but sure will be nice to shoot.

I look forward to some hero pictures of you shooting BOTH a deer and an elk. :upthumb: :wave:



Care to share any trail camera pictures? :D
 
Thank you Dan. If I can\'t at least shoot a deer, I may have larger issues :think: At least, I will have fun. I am excited about this season.

Someone, not on BTO, shared a new secret hot spot with some friends. I have decided to be more cautious with sharing. Last season, we had agreed to keep the spot a secret, therefore, I am a little disappointed. I know he regrets it a bit. There is already way too many hunters in my unit. As everyone in CO is experiencing, limited draw elk units for 0 or 1 Resident PP are getting harder to draw as people dump their PPs. It is causing spillover into the OTC units.

I won\'t be sharing anymore pictures. Where I hunt, I rarely see another hunter. Eventually, the non-lazy hunters will trickle into my OTC unit and appear where I hunt 0.5 mile to 1.5 mile from a road. Keeping my pictures off the internet will give me some piece of mind. Maybe I am paranoid.
 
I dont blame you for being excited.
It\'s not often people can hunt deer and elk in the same unit and have a good amount of both. :upthumb:


I also DO NOT blame you for not wanting to share pictures either. I 100% respect that and understand completely.
I\'ve slowly been doing the same myself.

I used to be very giving with my information because I was just trying to be a nice and helpful guy, but then I learned the hard way what happens when you do that.

Fast forward to now and I am being more like you. :shh: :shh: :shh:




Edit: If there are any pictures that you want deleted, just PM me the thread and post number.
I can make them disappear.
 
Dan, Thank you for your understanding.

Thank you for your offer to delete my past pictures. I can live with what I have posted in the past. Most hunters will never bother going to those places more than once if at all.

Last season, I gave some tips to 2 guys who were new to my area. I have no regrets giving them that information because they clearly were already trying on their own and were also sharing information with me. Plus, I did not disclose my hot spots. In my first 3 seasons, it was very rare that any guys (non solo guys) bothered to stop to speak with me, a women. Now, it happens more often. If a hunter is showing initiative on their own, I will throw out a couple of tips. This works both ways. They always end up sharing information with me too. I have never had any regrets with sharing that information.
 
I\'m still very excited for you even though I can\'t see pictures.

So at least do me a favor and take LOTS of hero pictures when you drop two lovely animals :D
 
Nice reports everyone!

This weekend, I helped my buddy scouting in his draw area in Colorado.

Traffic: horrendous out of Denver on Friday and worse coming back on Sunday.
Weather: slight rain off and on Saturday and only sprinkles on Sunday.
Vegetation: Extremely lush with all of the moisture CO had in May.
FS Roads: very good condition - we didn\'t go on any 4WD roads.
Cameras: Placed mine - my buddy placed his two last weekend.

My buddy and I arrived well after midnight to his draw unit, even though we left after 8pm to try to avoid traffic. We started hiking around 10am Saturday morning to check out a couple spots that looked good on the map. We kept seeing a lot of bear sign and ran into two of them. I couldn\'t get a good picture of the first one, but he was doing his best grizzly impression and succeeding. I haven\'t seen a live bear that big in CO, and his fur and slight hump made him look like a Jr griz!

We hiked for 7 hours and spotted around 50 elk, 2 bears, grouse, a ferret, and a couple of deer. Placed my trail camera near some aspens, lush vegetation and pointed at a wallow. Didn\'t run into anyone in the field, but saw a few people camping at established campgrounds.

Photos:




 
New area to look over this weekend. Maybe a 2016 place. Lots of potential, but no elk photos. But here\'s a nice lunch for scouting.
 

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I was still super sick today so I couldn\'t make it up to the mountains, but Alan was able to pull my camera cards and we will have a GREAT year.


I posted some better pictures in here


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It sucks making that 4hr drive by yourself but Dan\'s wife said he couldn\'t go I mean he was \"sick\" :dk: Our cameras are definitely showing us what we have moving through our areas. It was very wet and sign was easy to see in one area we are scouting and plan to hunt. But several miles away it was pretty dry so not really sure if it\'s cause one spot is more shaded than the other. I was lucky enough to see one cow today so that\'s a plus. We have been getting a lot of daytime pics and I hope it continues that way.

I decided to check one spot before I called it today. It has a water hole with a big meadow that has tall pines and new growth from a fire from previous years ago. On google earth it looked promising and the terrain showed what I thought it would be. After walking around the sign was almost none. I decided to place a camera near what little bit of sign I was able to find and hope that I am proved wrong when we go back up in a few weeks.

Here are a couple pics that Dan didn\'t attach to his hunting journal.
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I got a text from Deertick today.
Prelim scouting report sounds good for the WY elk hunt.

Ok......it sounded a lot better than good.

Can\'t wait for the pics and full report
 
I\'ve been following one specific elk for a while now and trying to pin everything together on him.
I\'ve been catching him quite a few times on each of my cameras (3, all located within a 2 mile segment)

I had an idea where he is spending his time during the day, so I spent most of my day scouting those areas.
I also moved one move camera into this area to see if I can catch him



I\'m pretty sure I already know the answer though because he is hitting my water hole right at the end of legal shooting hours.....

He\'s getting nice and big.









I\'ll keep running after him. He is definitely the stud of the area...
 
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