My wife and I have some good friends that live in Fort Collins Co and we stopped by last year on my Wyoming antelope hunt..it worked out to be a great family vacation. Well we are planning on going out to Fort Collins again next year or the year after and Id love to plan an elk hunt for somewhere fairly close (within 2 hrs or so). What areas would you fellas recommend? Im looking for a gun hunt. Id like to do a DIY, but im not against hiring a guide. Your thoughts please.

Thanks,
Josh

Two fairly good areas that I can think of GMU 8 near Sand Creek Look up Bull mountain. Both sides of the road from the pass is good all up hill but the pack out is down.

GMU 6 I believe ( at work w/o map) Rahwya wilderness area. Right side of the road going to Cameron pass. Route 14 from the Poudre river canyon on up to the pass.

Both of these areas are about 60 miles from ft. Collins. Lots of elk but steep and heavy green timber. Cameron pass is 10,000'+

You can PM me tonite when I am home with maps etc.

Lefty C

Josh, the Sierra Madres run along the Colorado/Wyoming state line. If you hunt on the Wyoming side then you're more like 3-4 hrs instead of 2 hrs from Ft. Collins, but there's lots of elk and drawing a tag is pretty easy. Check out GMU 21 for Wyoming. I don't know about the Colorado side.

If you're interested, feel free to send me a PM.

The North Park area is 2 or 2 1/2 hrs from Ft Collins
Google the location for information.
I hunt areas 17 and 171. Not great hunting but Elk are there
There are some areas closer up Poudre Canyon but I'm not familiar with them. I have seen some damn big Elk while driving in the upper canyon.

Josh you PM me and I'll tell you wear to go on Public ground and you will see elk........lots of them.

Well, the Rocky Mountain National Park IS public ground.

That's the spirit!.........





Casey

The main public land concentrations of elk throughout the whole Poudre drainage is along the park boundary in the wildernerss areas and north of Cameron Pass throughout the Rawahs. There is no easy hunting of Poudre Canyon elk. There are scattered little bands throughout the rest of the units, but not many. Like Tracks said, there are a lot more elk in North Park.
If these guys are willing to give you exactly where to go, take them up on it. None of what I told you is secret information, and the guys who hunt there still have single digit success rates with rifles. 7,8 and 19 are usually among the lowest success rates in the whole state and the vast majority of the hunters are locals who've been doing it for many years. Should tell you something.

There are a lot of elk in 6,7,& 8., but they hole up in some pretty awful helly holes as soon as human activity starts to pick up in late summer or fall. Better be prepared to dig them out of some pretty awful places. The weather at 10,000' feet has to be experienced to understand just how quickly it can go from summer to artic conditions.


lefty C