Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Elk hunt for Daughter #1

For a year now Daughter #1 has been planning to go with me on the annual elk hunt in 3rd Rifle season. She purchased a lefty Ruger Hawkeye in .308 and I gave her a Burris FF-II 3.9x for it. Then we worked up several loads for the rifle including a 130g TTSX at about 3,000fps and a 150g AB at around 2765fps. Her range is limited to about 300 yards with either due to her lack of experience at longer ranges.

She officially became a CO resident again on the 13th and, much to our surprise, there were still leftover cow tags available for 3rd Rifle. Unfortunately, Uncle Sam had other ideas and she will be shipping overseas for 6 weeks TDY the week before 3rd Rifle opens.

Last night we were at Wal-Mart killing time after dinner out, avoiding the house due to Wife hosting her book club. Daughter #1 decided to by a leftover 2nd Rifle cow tag for Unit 12/23/24 "just in case" she could convince me to drag the trailer out to Meeker for a weekend hunt.

The problem I've been struggling with is it costs the same to drag the trailer out for a weekend as it does for a week. I figure about $500 in fuel costs for the weekend hunt, plus food and other expenses. Not really something I had planned for in my hunting budget. Well, what the hell. I only have a limited amount of time on this orb to spend with my daughters and family.

Daughter #1 is the only one of my three that hunts and I'm pretty pumped about taking her. Her fiancée has quit his job in MD and will be moving out to CO next week and will join us on the hunt. The weather forecast looks good and Wife says she will come along, too, something she has wanted to do for a long time but hasn't due to bad weather and various health issues. Excellent!

Found out this morning that members of my team at work get an extra day off as a reward for long hours getting several new products ready for market. I'll be taking it on Monday after opening weekend, which means Daughter #1 can have 2-1/2 days in the field rather than 1-1/2. Chances of her success will still be slim, but significantly improved.

And, on top of all this good news, I just found out grandkid #2 is due in March, might be a 65th birthday present.

Happy to hear you two worked out the logistics and will be able to be together during the hunt this year. Years from now the cost of this trip will be forgotten but the memories will last a lifetime. Lets us know how she does. Our group will be there, GMU 12, right behind you season 3. Good luck to her, and we hope you all have a great time together.

Time with the family is priceless. It's awesome that she is motivated enough to pursue a cow hunt even if the odds are low and she won't get much time in the field. As a father of two young girls that both say they want to hunt I hope she is successful. Tell her thank-you for her service from us hunters here on the forums too. Best of luck to you guys.

Glad it worked out, where do you hunt in Meeker? I will be in the Buford, CO area for 1st rifle elk.

Not sure where we will be staying for either 2nd or 3rd Rifle. Maybe Avon lake by Buford or maybe at the river Camp RV Campground a couple miles west of Meeker by (what else?) the river.

I'll be back for 3rd Rifle for the week with two cow tags. Not sure where we will be staying but would love to get together if time permits.

Would love to meet you. We will be arriving on Monday October 25th and will be staying in Steamboat until Tuesday morning. Then we will be traveling to Hamilton and staying with Jeanne at J Bar H Outfitters. We are going to be back in Craig at the range on Thursday. If you remember the place I told you about two years ago, it is truly a hot spot during the third season. I got one there the year before last,and last year I sent a guy over there to the spot where I got mine and he got a double. There has to be a hard snow on the Mesa, if so, then the Elk will be there. I have heard that if they get a heavy snow during the second season, the Elk move down there as well. Never hunted second so don't know for sure. If we could meet during our time there it would be great.

Very best of luck on this special hunt!!!! http://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/images/icons/default/wink.gif

Last Sunday I got Daughter #1 and Dave, my long-time hunting buddy, out to the range. Dave showed up at 0630 as promised and we were set up and shooting a by 0730, trying to get most of the shooting done before the winds came up..

Dave needed to check zero on his MKII Ruger 7mm RM. He didn’t have a lot of ammo (160g Grand Slam) and wanted to save most of it for the long range, so after three shots at 100 he was done. Those three shots printed a nice little triangle dead centered at 2.5” high. After that he shot Remington and Winchester 150g loads through my Ruger .308 Scout (the Winchester shot better) and spotted for Daughter and me. I shot a few loads over the chrono to verify velocity and check zero with several rifles and loads, including my All-Weather Ruger Hawkeye.280 Rem with 140g AB and TTSX, tang safety Ruger .257 Roberts with 100g TTSX and Daughter’s Ruger Hawkeye .308 with 150g BT and 130g TTSX.

Our main purpose, though, was to help Daughter #1 select a load for elk season. She loves my .257 Roberts and has used it to take antelope but when she got her lefty .308 she was disenchanted to say the least, complaining about the recoil with factory ammo and the fact that it seemed ‘odd’ to be shooting a lefty rifle. (She is a lefty but all my centerfire rifles are right handed.) The 130g TTSX shot a slightly smaller group and closely matched the 100g TTSX Roberts load for calculated recoil, trajectory and retained energy and it got the nod as her elk load. I gave her a PAST shoulder pad and she put a total of 18 rounds through the .308. Not only did she not complain about recoil, she decided she liked the rifle after all. (Much to my relief, as I'm theo one that suggested it.)

Her groups, measuring about 1-1/4” for 3 shots for both the TTSX and BT, weren’t quite as small as mine but were more than good enough. We packed up and headed to the long (to 600 yards) range, only to find that a High power competition was just getting underway. Bummer. We headed back to the 100 yard range where we had Daughter #1 practice with the shooting tripod. We set 6 clay pigeons up on the berm for targets and, using the 150g BT that were shooting high and to the right of the 130g TTSX the rifle was zeroed for, had her start from a standing, empty chamber position. When Dave said “Go” she would get the tripod set up, take a seat and shoot a pigeon, aiming at or just off the pigeon’s 8:00 position to compensate for the change in ammo. While her times could have been (much) better, she hit the first 4 pigeons and flipped the last two, which were done from a kneeling position but still with the tripod. She was impressed with how much more difficult the kneeling position was in terms of controlling muzzle movement and now appreciates why I want her to shoot from the most steady position possible.

All in all a very good day. We were back home earlier than anticipated and after Dave left my wife, Daughter #1 and I headed to the Army surplus store top get her some wool pants. The selection was pretty bleak compared to when I bought mine many years ago but they had some in her rather petite size, in both heavy and lighter weight, and she found a pair in the heavy weight for her fiancée, who will be joining us for Daughter’s 2nd Rifle hunt and joining Dave and I for 3rd Rifle.

Wyoming antelope season is just around the corner and the two Colorado elk hunts will be here soon after. Wife had said I had to finish rebuilding the back deck before going hunting but she has given up on that. I did promise to get it done before winter, though.

Hope it is a great hunt, whether or not you tag anything

Update -

Daughter #1 and I had a great time, hunting Saturday and Sunday. Like everyone else we talked to, though, we weren't seeing any elk and the freshest droppings we saw were probably a month old. This on the north and northeast side of Sleepy Cat, just below the peak, where there is good cover, good graze and fresh, running water. Ditto that for the north side of Burro Mountain.


Sunday evening we stopped by the east entrance to Oak Ridge SWA and glassed the hillsides on the south side of the river. I had told Daughter to expect elk in the treeline and I was right. Too bad ti was private property. We also saw about 150-200 elk Monday morning when we drove home. All were down by the White river in the irrigated hay fields.

Daughter #1 had no idea how hard elk hunting would be. Her experience so far has been Wyoming antelope. she said it was like going from Hunting 101 to a post-grad course. She is hooked, though.

3rd rifle I'll be back in the same area but for a full week and prying for snow and the migration. Right now I have two cow tags but may exchange one for an OTC bull tag to allow me to hunt other areas as well.

Congrats on the new family members on the way, and hopefully the hunt with you kids.

I hope 3rd season goes well for you, that first snow that hit Monday is a good sign, hopefully the weather will cooperate and you'll get a good deal of snow the first part of 3rd season.

Spot

You're a lucky man to have a family full of hunters. Good luck on the next trip.

Forgot to add photos.

Day 1. Starting early in the morning we hunted high, around the north face of Sleepy Cat Peak. Not only did we not see any elk, we didn't see any fresh sign. That afternoon we hunted the north side of Burro Mountain, south of Buford near Baloon Lake. Beautiful country but the same results. Hunters we talked to that had hunted that area for years said they were having the same problem.




We did find this "mummy head" hanging in a tree.


The next day we decided to hunt lower as all the elk we had seen (several hundred) were on private land, down low by the White River. Here's a couple photos taken above Lake Avery / Big Beaver Reservoir:



While we didn't see any elk, we did have three mulie does come up withing a few feet. We had been watching them for a while and I decided to take a snooze. My daughter said that When they got close they were watching me pretty closely. I started to snore and that was too much for them.




Hopefully next year she will get to go during 3rd Rifle and will will actually get a shot.