Tubb2402
Member
In an effort for others to learn from my mistakes, I’d like to share last year’s elk hunt. I’m 33 years old and live in Mississippi. I grew up in Texas and have always enjoyed hunting but for the most part it has always been dove, quail, and duck hunting with a little deer hunting here and there. I’ve always had this dream to go elk hunting but I lived in Texas where there is very little public land and virtually no elk. I say all this to show that I was starting from scratch and knew nothing about elk.
In June 2017 I started doing some research. I first started thinking if I was going to go elk hunting I was going to need a better rifle. I didn’t own what I thought of as a good elk gun. I only had a 243, and 30-30 used for deer occasionally. I did build an AR-15 but didn’t want to use that either. Random luck would have it that the FFL dealer I used to build my AR was a fan of Howa’s. I remembered how he always bragged about Howa’s, and had several in his shop. I also had done several hiking trips in the mountains and knew I wanted something light. So I got out the brochure he gave me on Howa’s and found the Alpine Mountain rifle and Randy.
I had looked at other companies but all seemed to be quite a bit more expensive for light weight rifles. As I was researching the Howa Alpine Mountain rifle I ran across Randy’s video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojapa8Z1DTw). This video did two things one it helped me confirm this was the rifle I wanted and second it introduced me to Fresh Tracks. I decided to go with the .308, and contacted my FFL dealer. I had my FFL dealer put in my order but when he did HOWA said it was going to be 12 weeks to get my rifle. Luckily he called me before submitting the order and asked me what I wanted to do. I told him that was going to be cutting it close and asked if there was a way to rush it. Well when he called back it turned out they could do everything in house except the Cerekoting. The Cerekoting was what was going to take so long, so they suggested I do a custom order and get it with a blued barreled action without the Cerekoting. So we did and I got it in about a week and a half.
Next I knew I needed to learn more about elk hunting, so I did what most people my age do and started googling elk hunting. Well there was Randy again with his YouTube videos and this was the second time he had showed up in my research. I would say once I figured out he had more than just Fresh Tracks episodes and lots of detailed “how to videos” I found myself getting more and more excited about going elk hunting. I’d say the most helpful to me were:
To me the basics were: how do I locate elk, and what do I need to be successful and prepared. It was also when ELK Talk live was starting so I think I started listening to those sometime around episode 6 or 7. This was also very helpful as I was able to get a handful of questions answered. I had not joined hunt talk yet and don’t think I even knew what it was. So I actually took the time to read the comments at the bottom of YouTube videos. I was able to pick up several good pointers that I’m sure are somewhere in other videos, but I had not discovered yet. For example people asked about what side of the mountain I should glass in the morning and afternoon.
Being a first timer I didn’t even know there was a draw system for big game, as I had never hunted anywhere other than TX and MS. In TX all you had to do was go buy a hunting license and you were given “X” amount of Buck and Doe tags. In MS there is no restriction on the number of deer you can shoot. Well I soon figured out that Colorado had Over-The-Counter (OTC) tags, so I knew this was where I was going.
So before I got too much further into which unit I was going to hunt I needed to convince my wife that it would be a good idea to drive to Colorado from Mississippi and spend an additional ~$700 on an elk tag for a chance to kill an elk. I had alreadyt bought a ~$1k rifle and at the time was preparing to move from TX to MS. She as most people questioned, is this really worth it, given the move and doing something I had never done before. This is when I realized that there is always a reason not to do something. So I explained this was something I had a passion to do and let’s start looking for reasons to do things, instead of not do them. As we may only be in our 30s but time has a way of slipping by. This seemed to resonate with my wife and she came onboard, but didn’t want me to go alone. So I called a longtime friend and we were all set to go.
After I got her stamp of approval, I needed to figure out which unit I wanted to go. I knew I was going to have the best success rate if I went in 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] OTC Rifle season (Nov 4-12 / late season). Base on the videos I knew I was looking for sanctuaries. So I got on OnXMaps and found a unit within a new burn, in the migration corridors that overlapped summer and winter concentration areas, and was shaded light purple using the “Roadless Areas” feature. This was my spot.
Next it was just a matter of making sure I had what I thought were the most important items, optics. I had not purchased a scope yet for the rifle as I was trying to space out expenses. However, I ended up going with the VX-5 3-15x44, and over the next few months picked up a RX-1200 TBRw range finder. I already had a pair of Leopold 10x50 binoculars so I was good there but was on the fence about a spotter. Luckily in September I was able to find a craigslist deal on the SX-1 Ventana 20-60x80mm. It’s not the highest quality but got a great deal on it, and it was the lightest spotter in my price range. I was able to find some of the Caribou game bags and also picked up the Gerber vital on Amazon. I know this was a lot at once but I was able to spread it out over several months which helped. I had also just sold my house and moved from TX to MS and we had made a nice profit, so while I was spending a lot I knew I could replenish some of my savings.
Well a week before I left to go to CO my hunting buddy got an offer for someone to buy his business and for various reasons was no longer able to go. This was gut punch, and I while it didn’t change my desire to go it did effect my wife’s peace of mind knowing I was going to be out there all by myself. Grudgingly she was still ok with me going but I made sure to call or text her at least once a day every time I had signal.
So after I had been living in MS for a little over a week I was off to CO for my first Elk hunt. Since I was starting a new job I could only be gone for six business days and unfortunately the way schedules worked out I only had from Wednesday Nov1-8[SUP]th[/SUP]. Well I knew it was about an 18-19 hour drive so I was going to need a few days travel. So I drove for 6 hours after work on Tuesday and 12-13 hours on Wednesday. Since I was by myself I was able to just sleep in the back seat of my truck. No need to set up a camp or a cot. I woke up on a piece of BLM land in beautiful CO with some cows mooing.
I still had about an hour drive and needed to pick up my hunting license. By mid-afternoon Thursday Nov 2[SUP]nd[/SUP] I had everything and made it to my hunting location. I had about a day and half of scouting before the season opened. I started walking up the trail and had about a 3 mile hike with all my gear. I get about half a mile up the trail and discovered there were trucks there. Well here was one of the first lessons I learned in elk hunting. Try to find out the adherence to motorized vehicles. I looked to see if there was another trail I missed, then a truck went driving by and realized that no one was obeying the no larger than 50in motorized vehicle rule. So I hiked up the trail as I was branching off about another mile up, and heading further into the burn. This was a new burn and here was another lesson. This burn was a little too new and no regrowth had really started. Once I had hiked about ~3 miles I realized the glassing spot was not as good as I thought. The steepness was just a little too flat and probably a little exaggerated on google earth. So I was not able to glass as well as I had hoped, and couldn’t see anything. There may have been elk in there but I couldn’t see them.
After realizing this was not going to work, it was getting dark and I decided to just cut ties and try another spot. This was another lesson I learned. I needed to have multiple locations with good glassing spots. I had multiple spots but they hinged off of this one glassing location. Once I got back to the truck I cooked some dinner and drove to a location where I had signal, then started looking for another location.
I ended up deciding to go to another spot about 2 hours away. I drove that night so I’d be ready to go Friday morning Nov 3[SUP]rd[/SUP]. This was a much better spot and had a lot fewer hunters and you could drive a good ways up the mountain. I found a good sign when I got to the trail head, a gated road closed sign.
It was a 4 mile hike in and 3 good glassing spots that overlooked a valley and up another canyon. I spend all day Friday glassing those canyons. Unfortunately I did not have any luck seeing elk; I did however see one large ram and a handful of ewes. I apologize for the bad quality I was holding my phone up to my spotter, in 15mph wind. They had just started heading up the mountain and I couldn’t get a good photo of the ram.
Well for the next two days (Saturday and Sunday) I ended up trying the different glassing spots until I finally found some elk. On Monday Nov 6[SUP]th[/SUP] a herd was around 11am came migrating from summer to winter range at the bottom of this canyon. There was a smaller 5x5 with them and I thought I didn’t care I’d take whatever I could get as I’m a 1[SUP]st[/SUP] timer. I watched them, and tried to figure out where they were going. The land they were on was private but they had come back up the mountain to public land. I stayed in that glassing spot the rest of the day making sure they didn’t come back down to feed that evening. So based upon where I was located I knew I had to move locations to try and locate them. While waiting that day I used my OnXmaps and found a way over to them but was going to require me to drive around.
I found a small corner of BLM land that crossed over the main highway, so the next morning I just parked the truck on the side of the road. This was Tuesday November 7[SUP]th[/SUP] and I had to leave that evening and spend all day the 8[SUP]th[/SUP] driving home, as I had to be back at work on the 9[SUP]th[/SUP]. So that final morning my plan was to hike over to the top of this ridge that would allow me to look over the valley where I had last seen the herd, and look on the other side of the ridge too. To get there I had to climb 600 feet in elevation over a quarter mile, and then ~2mile hike along the ridge; however, once I was up on the ridge it was pretty easy walk. I got to my glassing location early that morning as the sun was just coming up but unfortunately I did not see anything and it started to snow. I glassed until dark but with the snow it was hard to see. I knew this was going to be the end of my trip, and while I didn’t harvest a bull or a cow elk I did learn a lot. I think if I had picked a better glassing spot to begin with, and been able to hunt the full season I would have been more successful. I’m glad I did it, and I had fun. For 2018 I’ve put in for draw hunts and will fall back to CO OTC if I do not draw.
In June 2017 I started doing some research. I first started thinking if I was going to go elk hunting I was going to need a better rifle. I didn’t own what I thought of as a good elk gun. I only had a 243, and 30-30 used for deer occasionally. I did build an AR-15 but didn’t want to use that either. Random luck would have it that the FFL dealer I used to build my AR was a fan of Howa’s. I remembered how he always bragged about Howa’s, and had several in his shop. I also had done several hiking trips in the mountains and knew I wanted something light. So I got out the brochure he gave me on Howa’s and found the Alpine Mountain rifle and Randy.
I had looked at other companies but all seemed to be quite a bit more expensive for light weight rifles. As I was researching the Howa Alpine Mountain rifle I ran across Randy’s video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojapa8Z1DTw). This video did two things one it helped me confirm this was the rifle I wanted and second it introduced me to Fresh Tracks. I decided to go with the .308, and contacted my FFL dealer. I had my FFL dealer put in my order but when he did HOWA said it was going to be 12 weeks to get my rifle. Luckily he called me before submitting the order and asked me what I wanted to do. I told him that was going to be cutting it close and asked if there was a way to rush it. Well when he called back it turned out they could do everything in house except the Cerekoting. The Cerekoting was what was going to take so long, so they suggested I do a custom order and get it with a blued barreled action without the Cerekoting. So we did and I got it in about a week and a half.
Next I knew I needed to learn more about elk hunting, so I did what most people my age do and started googling elk hunting. Well there was Randy again with his YouTube videos and this was the second time he had showed up in my research. I would say once I figured out he had more than just Fresh Tracks episodes and lots of detailed “how to videos” I found myself getting more and more excited about going elk hunting. I’d say the most helpful to me were:
- Five calendar period videos - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZjhYLafB48
- E-scouting videos - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0Z_NClt88Q
- Bag dump videos - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wr_QcASb1Z0
To me the basics were: how do I locate elk, and what do I need to be successful and prepared. It was also when ELK Talk live was starting so I think I started listening to those sometime around episode 6 or 7. This was also very helpful as I was able to get a handful of questions answered. I had not joined hunt talk yet and don’t think I even knew what it was. So I actually took the time to read the comments at the bottom of YouTube videos. I was able to pick up several good pointers that I’m sure are somewhere in other videos, but I had not discovered yet. For example people asked about what side of the mountain I should glass in the morning and afternoon.
Being a first timer I didn’t even know there was a draw system for big game, as I had never hunted anywhere other than TX and MS. In TX all you had to do was go buy a hunting license and you were given “X” amount of Buck and Doe tags. In MS there is no restriction on the number of deer you can shoot. Well I soon figured out that Colorado had Over-The-Counter (OTC) tags, so I knew this was where I was going.
So before I got too much further into which unit I was going to hunt I needed to convince my wife that it would be a good idea to drive to Colorado from Mississippi and spend an additional ~$700 on an elk tag for a chance to kill an elk. I had alreadyt bought a ~$1k rifle and at the time was preparing to move from TX to MS. She as most people questioned, is this really worth it, given the move and doing something I had never done before. This is when I realized that there is always a reason not to do something. So I explained this was something I had a passion to do and let’s start looking for reasons to do things, instead of not do them. As we may only be in our 30s but time has a way of slipping by. This seemed to resonate with my wife and she came onboard, but didn’t want me to go alone. So I called a longtime friend and we were all set to go.
After I got her stamp of approval, I needed to figure out which unit I wanted to go. I knew I was going to have the best success rate if I went in 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] OTC Rifle season (Nov 4-12 / late season). Base on the videos I knew I was looking for sanctuaries. So I got on OnXMaps and found a unit within a new burn, in the migration corridors that overlapped summer and winter concentration areas, and was shaded light purple using the “Roadless Areas” feature. This was my spot.
Next it was just a matter of making sure I had what I thought were the most important items, optics. I had not purchased a scope yet for the rifle as I was trying to space out expenses. However, I ended up going with the VX-5 3-15x44, and over the next few months picked up a RX-1200 TBRw range finder. I already had a pair of Leopold 10x50 binoculars so I was good there but was on the fence about a spotter. Luckily in September I was able to find a craigslist deal on the SX-1 Ventana 20-60x80mm. It’s not the highest quality but got a great deal on it, and it was the lightest spotter in my price range. I was able to find some of the Caribou game bags and also picked up the Gerber vital on Amazon. I know this was a lot at once but I was able to spread it out over several months which helped. I had also just sold my house and moved from TX to MS and we had made a nice profit, so while I was spending a lot I knew I could replenish some of my savings.
Well a week before I left to go to CO my hunting buddy got an offer for someone to buy his business and for various reasons was no longer able to go. This was gut punch, and I while it didn’t change my desire to go it did effect my wife’s peace of mind knowing I was going to be out there all by myself. Grudgingly she was still ok with me going but I made sure to call or text her at least once a day every time I had signal.
So after I had been living in MS for a little over a week I was off to CO for my first Elk hunt. Since I was starting a new job I could only be gone for six business days and unfortunately the way schedules worked out I only had from Wednesday Nov1-8[SUP]th[/SUP]. Well I knew it was about an 18-19 hour drive so I was going to need a few days travel. So I drove for 6 hours after work on Tuesday and 12-13 hours on Wednesday. Since I was by myself I was able to just sleep in the back seat of my truck. No need to set up a camp or a cot. I woke up on a piece of BLM land in beautiful CO with some cows mooing.
I still had about an hour drive and needed to pick up my hunting license. By mid-afternoon Thursday Nov 2[SUP]nd[/SUP] I had everything and made it to my hunting location. I had about a day and half of scouting before the season opened. I started walking up the trail and had about a 3 mile hike with all my gear. I get about half a mile up the trail and discovered there were trucks there. Well here was one of the first lessons I learned in elk hunting. Try to find out the adherence to motorized vehicles. I looked to see if there was another trail I missed, then a truck went driving by and realized that no one was obeying the no larger than 50in motorized vehicle rule. So I hiked up the trail as I was branching off about another mile up, and heading further into the burn. This was a new burn and here was another lesson. This burn was a little too new and no regrowth had really started. Once I had hiked about ~3 miles I realized the glassing spot was not as good as I thought. The steepness was just a little too flat and probably a little exaggerated on google earth. So I was not able to glass as well as I had hoped, and couldn’t see anything. There may have been elk in there but I couldn’t see them.
After realizing this was not going to work, it was getting dark and I decided to just cut ties and try another spot. This was another lesson I learned. I needed to have multiple locations with good glassing spots. I had multiple spots but they hinged off of this one glassing location. Once I got back to the truck I cooked some dinner and drove to a location where I had signal, then started looking for another location.
I ended up deciding to go to another spot about 2 hours away. I drove that night so I’d be ready to go Friday morning Nov 3[SUP]rd[/SUP]. This was a much better spot and had a lot fewer hunters and you could drive a good ways up the mountain. I found a good sign when I got to the trail head, a gated road closed sign.
It was a 4 mile hike in and 3 good glassing spots that overlooked a valley and up another canyon. I spend all day Friday glassing those canyons. Unfortunately I did not have any luck seeing elk; I did however see one large ram and a handful of ewes. I apologize for the bad quality I was holding my phone up to my spotter, in 15mph wind. They had just started heading up the mountain and I couldn’t get a good photo of the ram.
Well for the next two days (Saturday and Sunday) I ended up trying the different glassing spots until I finally found some elk. On Monday Nov 6[SUP]th[/SUP] a herd was around 11am came migrating from summer to winter range at the bottom of this canyon. There was a smaller 5x5 with them and I thought I didn’t care I’d take whatever I could get as I’m a 1[SUP]st[/SUP] timer. I watched them, and tried to figure out where they were going. The land they were on was private but they had come back up the mountain to public land. I stayed in that glassing spot the rest of the day making sure they didn’t come back down to feed that evening. So based upon where I was located I knew I had to move locations to try and locate them. While waiting that day I used my OnXmaps and found a way over to them but was going to require me to drive around.
I found a small corner of BLM land that crossed over the main highway, so the next morning I just parked the truck on the side of the road. This was Tuesday November 7[SUP]th[/SUP] and I had to leave that evening and spend all day the 8[SUP]th[/SUP] driving home, as I had to be back at work on the 9[SUP]th[/SUP]. So that final morning my plan was to hike over to the top of this ridge that would allow me to look over the valley where I had last seen the herd, and look on the other side of the ridge too. To get there I had to climb 600 feet in elevation over a quarter mile, and then ~2mile hike along the ridge; however, once I was up on the ridge it was pretty easy walk. I got to my glassing location early that morning as the sun was just coming up but unfortunately I did not see anything and it started to snow. I glassed until dark but with the snow it was hard to see. I knew this was going to be the end of my trip, and while I didn’t harvest a bull or a cow elk I did learn a lot. I think if I had picked a better glassing spot to begin with, and been able to hunt the full season I would have been more successful. I’m glad I did it, and I had fun. For 2018 I’ve put in for draw hunts and will fall back to CO OTC if I do not draw.
Last edited:
