I was up there Memorial Day 2016 and I'm going this labor Day to shoot Prairie Dogs off of Moffett County road 72 and 63 just to East of Middle Mountain and Diamond Peak. This is on the flats East so no bother to the Elk and Deer herds. Lots of White Tails and Gunnison PD's there.
Was able to harvest my first elk (cow) this past Saturday! Thanks everyone for the advice! Here is a pic and summary...
9/10/2016 201 Cow Elk hunt recap
Left Denver around 9am and got to 201 about 2:30pm. Original plan was to take 72 west to the road/path that goes straight north to Antone Gap and Rocky Reservoir. However, since we were there a bit early we decided to take the path that goes straight up the east face of Diamond Peak. We decided to go this route so that we could traverse the north side via the road and do a bit of scouting on the way to the campground. Taking this eastern "road" (cattle path) turned out to be difficult but rewarding. The first mile to the cattle fence was fairly easy, but after that a high clearance vehicle is needed. We were in a Chevy Trailblazer and had to move a lot of rocks and build rock ramps. Ended up taking us about 2hrs to get up this road (not worth it). It was rewarding because we saw 3 groups of elk (each 1 bull and 4 cows) in the ravine that we drove up. This was exciting and raised expectations for the weekend! After reaching the top (road that traverses around diamond peak) we bumped into CedarVista and his buddy that were doing some glassing. After a quick chat and realizing the sun was getting low CedarVista recommended going around the south side of Diamond to get to Rocky Res. However, I miss understood and didn't take the turn back down to 72 and instead continued on the path around the south side. Unfortunately after about 30 min it dead ended. We turned around and headed back and on the way saw a herd of 9 cows about 600 yds. up the hill; another good sign! After seeing so many elk on the east side of the mountain we decided to try and find a camp spot there instead of Rocky Res. We finally found a decent spot off the road on the north east side. We quickly set up tents and headed out for some glassing in the last hour of daylight. We ended up finding 2 groups of elk to watch and Buck with a couple does. Elk was our priority even though I had a buck tag as well. 1 group of elk were out in the wide open and it was hard to tell where they would head to for the night. The 2nd group of elk were feeding in out of some trees on the south side of a ravine that ran east/west. The plan was to find them first thing Saturday morning. Saturday morning we rolled out of camp at 5:30am in the dark and wanted to cross the large open area between camp and the lip of the ravine where we'd last seen the elk Friday night before it got light out. Right around 6:30 we belly crawled up to the lip of the ravine with hopes of seeing the herd of elk. They weren't there, but we were hearing some quiet bugling coming from near the bottom. We spent the next hour creeping down the south side of the ravine toward where we kept hearing the bugling. About a hundred yds. from the bottom we still hadn't seen anything and the bugling had stopped. After about 5min of sitting there contemplating our next move we heard a bugle and cow call off to our left (west) a few hundred yards away. Shoot, they had gave us the slip! The next thing we heard was a large crash through the woods, the bottom of the ravine and up the other side, and few more bugles mixed with cow calls. GREAT, we thought there they go. We sat there at the bottom of the ravine a few more minutes and finally caught a glimpse of the bull with 4 cows at the top of the ravine on the north side. The chase was on! I moved up the north side of the ravine to gain some ground on them as they fed up and over the lip of the ravine. My buddy stayed on the south face of the ravine to help guide me since I could no longer see the herd. He put me right under them. As I crested the edge of the ravine there were 4 cows and a bull standing across a clearing on small hill. I took a minute to range a large cow standing broadside at the top of the hill, but she was at 170yd; too far for me with a muzzle loader. There were still 1 mature cow and 3 young ones to the left at the base of the hill across the clearing. I ranged her at 140yds. I needed to gain 30-40yds on her to get a good shot, but there was NO cover other than small shrubs. I began to belly crawl and made it about 15yds before she spotted me. She stared me down for a bit and then began to move up the hill with the bull and other cows, but they did not bug out in a hurry. So, I laid there a couple minutes until they were all up and over the small hill. As soon as they were out of sight I ran to the hill and made my way up it to the edge. Luckily there was a large bush I could kneel behind. As I peeked out above the bush I could see it was going to be a repeat of the last scenario... 100+ yds. across an open space to the herd. I was trying to decide my next move when one of the large cows spotted me and started walking head on straight at me. After a few yards she started barking/grunting at me. Then a cow on the other side of the ravine started barking back! Unbeknownst to me at the time a cow had walked up on my buddy at 20yds. So, we don't know if they were both barking at us individually or if they were calling back and forth to each other. Either way it was CRAZY! This went on for about 2min all with her walking straight at me. I was still kneeling down behind a large bush and all I could see was the tops of her ears. I was sure she was going to see me or wind me and bug out at a dead run. Then she stopped for a second and turned broadside as if she was going to walk away. This was my chance! I stood up from behind the bush and made a clean double lung shot at 40yds. She ran about 150yds before falling over. Everything was over with by 8:05am. I couldn't have planned a more perfect hunt! Couple observations… We never made it to the north or west side of Diamond to check out the terrain or amount of elk, but everyone we talked to seemed to say there were elk all over the mountain. In total we saw 8 herds of elk. All but 1 group were below the road in elevation and had 1 bull with 4-20 cows. The bulls we saw (7) were all good bulls, but were not what I’d classify as trophy bulls (350+) or they were too far away to get a decent approximation of size. There were a good number of bugles at dusk and dawn and even 1 bull making a lot of noise until about 11am. I think it was the beginning of the rut, but probably not in full swing yet. My guess is that in the next week or so the big bulls will move in and break up the larger herds of 20+ cows with only 1 bull. As far as terrain I’d suggest an ATV. We were in a trailblazer and it took a bit of a beating; especially on the road going up the east face. An ATV would make it easier to get from point A to B around the mountain or even over to Middle Mountain. All in all 201 is a great unit and I can’t wait till the day comes I can hunt it for a bull…. Although with point creep who knows if that will ever actually happen. For now I am thankful to have gotten my first elk!
Congrats Rob on your first elk. I seen where you was camped when we came thru there Friday. I shot a great bull just north of where you was camped Sat morning about 10.
Congrats Millerjj, that's a once in a lifetime hunt! Yeah I heard your shot while we were quartering her out. Later when we were done packing out we saw a picture someone (George I think) had of him. Looked like a great bull!
My buck tag was for muzzle loader. I had hoped to go back up this past weekend, but it just didn't work out with family plans. Thanks for the offer though!
