Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Idaho vs. Montana vs. Colorado... best elk hunting?

I do love to hoof it... in fact I'd be inclined to set up a base camp/spike camp arrangement...

The altitude would get me, at first anyway. It sucks 'cause I grew up in New Mexico at almost 6000 feet, but now if I go to 6000 feet, much less 10,000 feet, it tweaks me for a few days!

I'd have to make certain I showed up in good aerobic shape for that one.

-jeff

Most foot hunters hunt out if 3 days. A lot of areas require access by horse or mule. Unit 54 is great, but to get into them, you need to get into the Castles or Soap basin. I hunt 25 al ot, but the first two miles is private and 1000 ft elevation gain.
Montana is to expensive, Colorado goes quanitity not quality for all their elk. I have seen more nice bulls taken this year than the past.

The northwest of CO holds a lot of elk, but several areas are draw only,and there is a lot of private land too. You might look at the NW corner of the Flat Tops but you have to weed out the draw areas vs the over the counter areas.
Co is considering dropping the cost of Non-resident doe deeer license becauue so many go unsold

Hmmm,
Colorado is sounding better and better!

I equate shooting doe mule deer with a rifle to the proverbial fish in the barrel. Probably why there is an abundance, that and the areas that are tagged CWD areas have a ton of leftovers. A nice corn fed whitetail is more to my liking.

Montana is way better! Just look at Dobers pictures.

I hope to have a chance to try Montana one day.

I DREAM to hunt Montana!

I shoot the does, because they want them shot to better the deer herd, and deer meat is deer meat, with or without the horns. I don't consider it actually hunting, as I shoot them when riding into or out of an elk hunting area. Sorta like ride by shooting. A nice buck and a doe will just about equal 1/2 an elk in meat if taken care of properly. Hell, I shoot beef between the eyes and that isn't hunting either, but it sure don't make them taste any worse or bettter once in the freezer

The corn feed whiteails are indeed very good but coming up with access in eastern CO is a thing of the past almost.

I have never has a bad tasting deer out of the SE corner of the Flat Tops in 35 yrs of hunting. Just had burger from the buck I shot last week, and it was excellent.

As for Montana being better, probably the chance at a bigger bull is better, but look at the regs and cost. Montana caters to the outfitters. Send in a contract with your application and you are almost certain to get drawn, or send more money and you will. NM has good bulls, but it cost about $850 to draw in one of the better areas, if you can draw at all

Maby the DOW can use some of the money they're extorting from us for their "habitat stamp" to buy some land out easy for state wildlife areas.

No contest. If I was looking to hunt out of state for elk it would be Colorado hands down.

OK, so if a guy was driving down from Oregon and thus was hoping to focus on the North Western part of Colorado, and was going to be hunting public land... any thoughts on units to focus on? My group loves to hunt wilderness areas, and we like to work hard. That said, our base camp, at least, would have to be somewhere accessible by our 4wd vehicles; in other words we don't have horses or mules to pack in our wall tents and *I* ain't packin' that stuff in! But we do have good trucks with tough tires and good clearance and chains for all four tires... we can get out rigs down some fairly bad roads if need be.

This would be the ideal scenario. Our base camp would be on the edge of a wilderness area or nice national forest. We'd range by foot 2 to 6 miles into said wilderness area/NF hunting every day. We might pack in, and set up, a simpler spike camp several miles in, if that was worth it...

Again in the perfect scenario, we'd have bull, cow, and deer tags to fill.

Is this possible? I really appreciate any help here. I gotta tell you Colorado guys, from the outside looking in... your state's licence and unit information is a real brain-twister! I though Oregon was bad that way!

-jeff

Sure its possible, but you'll have to take a number and get in line with all the other people that want to do the same thing.

I think your way of hunting would be about perfect for anywhere though.

So there's no obvious unit in Colorado (or elsewhere) that out of staters can do the above? Seems like CO, with all it's over the counter tags... might be possible. It's just hard to see it from here. They've got the state split into a kazillion tiny little units. I need to overlay the unit map on the website with a normal map somehow...

So the key here is, find a good unit with over the counter (OTC) bull and cow tags... and then the buck deer is a draw tag only in CO I believe, so start putting in for that. Or something like that.

Failing that, you are correct- I need to get in line. Probably should do that with multiple states. Just getting started on this hunting other states thing. What a pain.

On that note, if anyone has any questions about hunting regs for Oregon, I can help!

-jeff

Jeff. look into the road that goes from Meeker up to Buford and then east to Trappers Lake, on the bondary of Flat Tops wilderness.( South side,I think the north side is draw) Area 24, open over the counter for bulls and draw for cows and eithersex . Trouble with the later seasons is snow, DEEP SNOW. Even the best trucks can't plow through 4 ft of blown snow and you can get trapped.
I can give you some directions into the SE corner, but it is 7 miles of bad, nasty road, but sounds like you could get your trucks in there. Area 25, 2000 OTC cow tags and OTC bull tags and a special Septmenber cow hunt in there also. I hunte it for 10+ years or so.

Thanks! That's great info. I'll go look at their unit maps with that in mind.

Oh... we don't have monster mud bogger trucks or anything. Just good 4wd's with "real" tires on them that don't pop when you get on a gravel road, are rated for snow, etc (BFG AT's).

-jeff

I live in N. Idaho. There is decent hunting here but we are flooded with Washington and even Oregon hunters. In reality Idaho hunting is nothing great and not worth the expense.

I lived in SW Montana from 2001-2006 before moving back to Idaho. Over there the deer are thick compared to Idaho and there are actually mature bull elk there. I rate hunting there much easier as game numbers are high and it is not brushy like N. Idaho and coastal areas.

Then there is Colorado which has plenty of land and tags, along with elk to go with it.

Colorado gets it for me if you need an elk, Montana if you are looking for a larger bull. Idaho. Well if you like throwing money away come here.

I've "heard" it said, that colorado kills more elk every year than some of those states mentioned have.
Not even certain if it's so.
Public ground gets a lot of pressure. Not much chance of catching them coming out to graze at dusk 'n dawn. Got to get out and beat the dark timber, in secluded spots that are too difficult for the average joe..."IMHO"

I forget the numbers,but in CO I think the kill is about 60,000 elk and 45,000 deer,Co has more elk than any other state or Providence in Canada. The one time I huted in Canada I found that the elk were bigger bodied than the states elk, and many times the elk were 5x's in thier second-third year.

Those AZ bulls that take $15-$20K to hunt and 5-8 yrs waiting to get a tag are probably the biggest, with some of Utahs bulls coming second.

Generally a person who has more than a smattering of elk hunting knowledge can wind up taking at least a raghorn in CO. The kill ratio is about 20% give or take. The biggest failure on most huters are they give up too early, or fail to be mobile. Where there are no elk one day, there may be a bunch in a day or two, but if no elk show up, you have to be able to move a drainage tor two. This is why foot hunters suffer a big disadvantage. No matter how good of shape you are in, if you can'thump it over one mountain to the next for 4-5 days you aren't going to find elk .

The other disadvantge is these darn 5 day seasons. It takes 3-4 days sometimes just to find the elk. That is why I like the 2nd and 3rd seasons. This year ,the elk didn't move in until Wednesday

Saddle,
Colorado has as many elk as any two states or Canadian provinces, and almost as many as any three states or provinces combined.

Did you read the news release a few weeks ago where the CDOW initiated a new, allegedly improved, method of estimating elk numbers in the southwestern tier of GMU's. Their initial estimates of elk populations increased by almost 30% !!!

Do you remember 5-6 years ago when the CDOW realized they had been underestimating the moose population in North Park? They had just begun using this same new method.

If the new elk estimate holds true for the southwest, and we extrapolate that to the rest of the state, the true statewide population may be back up over 300,000--just when they thought they were getting a handle on elk numbers

Casey

Montana has the edge. When someone complains about the cost, they should look at Alaska.

I just got back from a Brown Bear hunt, The tag alone is $500.00. That only gets you started. You have to purchase a hunting license first and that is an $85.00 piece of paper that just says you can hunt.

Now figure all the inflated costs of gear and transportation that you need in Alaska, and Montana is a dime store bargain.

My son and I went hunting last Saturday morning and he got this nice bull, I missed my shot, or we would have had twice as much work.

Montana is truly the last best place, but if you don't believe it, fine, go to Colorado.