Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Diy hunt bull or cow?

Years ago, the Flat Tops in CO were the premier hunting spot in the state. Then several hunting rags started to write about it. I had hunted further east and that got over crowded, due to easier access the elk got driven out. I found this area and the sides of the bowl were covered with blow down timber where the elk stayed in. Below the rocks were aspen and good grass and trails where they moved along those meadows. No one had the gumption to climb thru that blow down ,except a few of us. We found a few game trails that we could access with our mules to get the elk out once we shot them. The few outfitters then and other hunters, moved thru this area as they all wanted to get up on top. We,from past hunting, found out that those big herds everyone seen up in the meadows, baled off the top and took up residency under the first rock shelf once bullet started to fly.

People started to notice that and the forest service let more outfitter permits for the area. Besides them and the DYI'ers ,you could not find a drainage that didn't have a camp in. Up on top, it was tent city. They camped right in the center of the elk's living rooms. They never did understand that if you did that, you had to keep a quiet camp, but still stay some distance away. No yelling, pots banging around axes chopping wood, driving tent stakes, etc. It wasn't long before the elk said the hell with that and moved again further west. I could still go in there and kill elk, if I was physically able. The guys I have told about the area, still didn't hunt it the way I explained. They never got high enough.

Yea, stop the pressure and they will find it again. But that won't happen.Hunters are too greedy and will never camp where they should. Everyone thinks that if they don't camp there, someone else will. Especially the back packers who think they have to be right there because they don't want to hike to their hunting areas every morning. You will hear some say that is BS, that they kill elk right near their camp. Yea, until they drive them out. You go into that meadow now, and you will find three-four camps there in elk season.