I just returned from the Colorado DIY Elk trip with the guys. Bowhunting elk in the west has been on my bucket list and I finally pulled it off. Many consider a western bull elk with a bow to be the ultimate hunting challenge and DIY in Colorado with an OTC tag makes it that much more difficult. This was my first hunt out west and I didn’t get an elk, but had an overall amazing experience. I am super grateful to my wife who let her oldest ‘child’ go on this hunt, leaving her with 3 little ones and 32 weeks pregnant. She promised not to have the baby while I was gone and I promised to come home in one piece – we both lived up to our word.
Roadtrip
This was a no-joke 28-hour epic drive with only two dudes (first two left 4 days earlier). There isn’t much more to say about this other then it was the first physical / mental test. I have no idea how truck drivers do this work. On the way out, we literally drove straight through. It was dumb, but we were excited to get there. My back is still sore.
Altitude
When we arrived to camp, I noticed I was getting short of breathe as I bent over to tie my shoes. This was my first clue that I wasn't in Kansas anymore. I later learned that anything above 9,000 feet and you run the risk of getting sick without acclimation. Well, we camped at 10,600 feet and 3 out of the 4 experienced pretty severe altitude sickness the first night. Puking, diarrhea and severe headaches were our reward for making the 28-hour drive on no sleep. At 1:00 AM on the first night, I thought about driving off the mountain to relieve the pressure and pounding as I thought my skull was going to explode. So far, this is turning out to be a wonderful vacation.
Base camp
We had an old-school 40-year old vintage canvas wall tent where we set up the cots, another full size tent for bins and gear, fly canopy over a kitchen table, multiple coolers, a grill, a hammock, clothes lines, a solar shower that never heated, and a poop shovel. There really wasn’t much we didn’t have in camp. And though I was prepared to live off self-purified water and dehydrated backcountry meals, a cold beer and grilled steak at night was pretty dang nice. We couldn’t have found a better place to set up camp and were surrounded by some of the most amazing peaks in the Colorado Rockies.
The picture slider (click left/right) gives only an idea of the shape of the SW Colorado landscape. Steep and rugged!
The Hunting
I’ve been out west fly fishing a decent amount, but never hunting big game. This was a completely different experience. The back country was so vast and the terrain was incredibly rugged. Dense black timber, boulder walls and aspen meadows all intertwined on some of the steepest mountains in the west between 10-12K feet.
We mostly ran day-trips from our centrally located camp and hunted mornings / evenings. The afternoons were in the mid 70-degrees and pretty much dead for hunting. We filled this time playing cards up on the mountain, fly fishing, napping in hammocks, shooting bow, or sitting in the ‘top secret’ local natural hot springs.
Honestly, my expectations were fairly (and intentionally) low going into this hunt. Not that I wasn’t confident, but I wasn’t going in expecting to shoot a bull elk in a brand new place when I truly had no idea what the hell I was doing. That wasn’t a realistic expectation. Elk Hunting DVDs, podcasts and calling in my truck can only get you so far without hunting experience.
The experience and the learning curve was what I was after on this trip. I’ve hunted for almost 3 decades now and consider myself fairly versed with just about anything woods or stream related. But, this elk hunt was a very different experience. And for this first trip, I wanted to immerse myself and learn as much on my own through my own observations. Some of my best days were out hunting and learning by myself. Without a guide or even a buddy, everything becomes so hyper-focused.
My goal really was to hear a bugle and get into elk at some point in the week. Fortunately, these were both exceeded as we were into elk every day and we had bulls bugling within 100 yards. And when we didn’t see, hear or smell them, there was elk sign pretty much everywhere we went – shredded trees, mud wallows, trails, beds, etc. And we had them at our doorstep – we had one guy miss at 25, had another bust us at 5 yards. On my last evening hunting, I had clear shots at a group of 3 spikes and a 4 pt. I just needed one legal bull, but they were all too small. In the end, getting a good bull close into bow range just never happened.
Learning Curve
At the end of the week we met a guy camping up the road from us we’ll call the Billy Goat. He earned this nickname from his friends for his ability to scale, climb, hike where most mortal men don’t venture. He was an elk hunting machine. It’s a small world and he was a former Olympic-level wrestler and after a few beers over an evening campfire, he offered to take us out in the morning. What I learned that morning with him in 4-5 hours might seriously take me 10 years on my own. He was an elk calling machine and could speak the language as good as anyone I've watched / listened to anywhere. He was an aggressive hunter and chased Elk like we hunt turkeys. He definitely set the bar for going forward. The guys are their camp were great and they bagged a couple of bulls that week. Without a doubt, the best part of this trip was we left with more friends than when we started the week.
Hooked
I had a feeling that this might happen. After this trip and experience, I am already thinking about the next trip. It’s not the simplest thing to pull off year in and year out, especially with (about to be) 4 young kids, but I must get back again. Maybe it’s starting to collect my preference points in a few states and maybe it takes a few years. But, chasing elk with a bow out west was too much fun to only do this once in my life. Ideally I could pull this off a couple time over the next few years. Then I'll actually know what I'm doing and be able to take my kids when they get older. Alone in the wilderness with my boys for a couple weeks would be amazing. And maybe then, we'll loosen an arrow.