Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Is It Really That hard To Kill a Bull Elk in CO on Public Land

In 3 trips,our crew has taken 6 bulls off public land. Its not rocket science. If we can do it obviously. Patience,persistence ,and stealth. Hunt smart and hunt hard. Don't let it get in your head that because its elk hunting,it has to be difficult. If you are a good deer hunter you'll be fine.

As mentioned scouting trips in the summer do little to help you find Elk in the summer, but such trips can let you learn the area, and I agree with KC that knowing the land is most important. My group has been hunting a low percentage area for the last 24 years, missing only three years to try another spot and doing pretty good.
This year four hunters got three cows, and the other one missed a nice bull that came up behind him and spooked.
Sometimes a thing like logging will change patterns and the Elk hideouts will change and you have to find them again but they will tend to hang out in the same spots year after year

It can be done. I've managed to kill 4-5 bulls, including 2-6pts, in the past 8 years in Colorado in the second season and I live 1500 miles away. In full disclosure, I did spend alot of time in the early 2000's working from our Denver office and made 1-2 scouting trips a year to new areas. I know a couple of areas fairly well.

I posted this earlier today but to me the name of the game in Colorado is to hunt where no else does - a rather obvious, congratulations Captain Obvious statement. I've had good luck hunting two types of situations - steep/deep/ugly and the area between the horse guys and dayhunters. The area between the 2 tends to be 2-3 miles from any road, access point, trail, etc. Go over a ridge or two, then start hunting.

My favorite example of steep/ugly is the West Elk Wilderness area - hunt down in the canyon. It contains elk most of the hunting season and some dang nice bulls. Have a game plan for getting one out of there before you venture down in. It will suck getting one out of there. Trust me........

The issue with hunting the buffer between the horse and dayhunt guys is knowing where the horse guys and outfitter camps are. Some only hunt 2-3 miles from the road. We hiked in ~ 4.5 miles or so in 2016 to an area I'd scouted in previous years. We set camp, then had 2 guys with horses ride right through our camp. They promptly set up camp ~ 1/2 mile away. Then proceeded to chop wood, and a make a bunch of noise.

I hunted on the ridge above camp the opening morning and ran into 3-4 guys which I didn't expect. Most were sitting in nice looking openings/meadows/vantage points. I ran into their outfitter camp the first evening on the way back to my camp. I hunted the timber all day and saw 6 the first day - all moving away from hunters. I hunted the same stretch of timber the next day and killed a raghorn in AM still hunting in the timber. It was/is the smallest bull I've killed to date but I was glad to have him given all the traffic in the area. I ran into 3-4 more guys the second day that hadn't seen anything. Moral of the story - hunt where others don't. In this case it was in a strip of black timber that led away from guys into more far flung places. I've killed almost all of my bulls still hunting in the timber in the AM. I shot the CO raghorn at less than 30 feet. Still hunting in the timber seems to be a lost art - try it in areas that look to be travel corridors.

As an interesting aside, one of the other guys with us shot a decent 5 pt hunting back toward the road and closer to private property - where no one was. He saw the elk the day before and simply wandered over there the following AM. No one around except a couple of guys with knives <G>

One other thing - I wouldn't listen or worry too much about what you're hearing from folks. The sad truth is that most won't do what it takes to kill elk consistently. Its far easier to watch TV shows on hunting and sit where they do - on long parks/meadows hunting unpressured elk. Elk learn that game quick and avoid such places until dark. Hunt away from the access points, hunt the timber, find places where elk move away from people when the shooting starts. Travel corridors on NF that lead to private land can be fantastic the first day, day and a half Then suck the rest of the week.

I'd also consider first season in CO. It can be warm and you'll likely get a snow storm at some point during that short season that will curtail movement. But pockets of the elk can be found that are relatively unpressured. Emphasis on relatively.............

Also - take KC and saddle up on their offers to discuss. You'll cut 2-3 years off your learning curve.

Or 20 if you do it right.


Okie John

I wasn't "accusing" him, I was making fun of him for being coy about not saying if it was public or private. Hunting on public land is generally more challenging than hunting on private, but hunting on private is not necessarily a gimmee, either. I know this because I've guided for outfitters on private land in New Mexico and Colorado most years from the mid-80's until a few years ago.

Keep in mind AC, the success rate for general bull tags in Colorado for the last 40 years runs 15%-20%. There have been some notable exceptions when bodacious storms have pushed deer and elk down early and there's been a veritable slaughter. 1984 was one of the years I can definitely recall........

Casey:

I remember 1984. I was hunting deer on the west slope. We had tried to drive up the Smith Fork road and turned around when the snow started coming up over the front bumper. The elk and deer had moved down and they were concentrated in the foothills and we could see dozens of elk and deer grazing in the open fields. So we asked for and received permission to hunt on a private ranch. One day I took a nap around noon and a cow elk and calf nearly stepped on me while I was dozing.

KC

It snowed for four days straight for the 1st elk season in Southwestern Colorado--everything above 7000ft was impassible. I ended up killing my bull in the sagebrush 3/4 of a mile behind our ranch house in the valley--on the last day. This was back when there was a 1st elk only season, 2nd deer only season, and the 3rd combined season.

I had a friend who outfitted a hunt with him, another guide, and four clients on a public land hunt in a designated Wilderness. They had to be rescued by helicopter. Not only did he have to pay for the helo, but the USFS fined him for bringing the helo into Wilderness (the helo couldn't actually land because the snow by that time was 7-8 feet deep). It wiped out all the money he made from the hunt!

Casey -
I'm wondering if you have a better statistic source than I have.
I cannot find a published OTC bull success %. I have to derive it from other stats but I never get a complete (apples to apples) statistic.
Last year overall success 19% (no question that recent success has been trending downward). All manners of take 18%, all rifle seasons 20%.
I've gotta believe that bull success is less than cow success, so I think less than 20% (far less I think), but having trouble with that actual number.
160K OTC unit hunters w/15K bulls harvested gives about 9% success (but not all OTC unit hunters are bull hunters, and not all are public land and DIY).
I run into a similar difficulty with every way I try to derive that stat.
Anyway if you have good stat source I think it would go pretty directly to the OP's question.
I've googled this and found the question asked a few times but never actually answered. I suspect the actual answer might not be a boost to OTC license sales.

I doubt that CPW wants the general public to know what the % success ratio is of number of bulls killed either OTC or by draw. Second thought, I doubt they even have a clue as they do those limited surveys by email and then try to extrapolate that to the total kill. They supposedly decide tag sales after they do post season herd counts, but even then they readily admit those counts are very inaccurate

Yes it is. Being from the east coast I did 2 or 3 DIY hunts and never once saw an elk. Since hunting with an outfitter on private land in Units 12 and 13 I've killed 12 elk (10 bulls and 2 cows). In 2004 while hunting mule deer on the outfitters private land in unit 13 I saw a herd of 600 elk come into the outfitters alfalfa field in unit 12. Twas a site to see! The funny thing about this area is that there is BLM around, it is difficult to access and no one hunts it.

Actually, if overall success is at 19% then you're right OTC bull tags have to be quite a bit less. I haven't paid attention to recent years, but often my info comes a from a CPW biologist that is a family friend and I get to walk into his office and talk to him and consult printed info. Sometimes he prints out stuff for me. I don't do it often so as not to abuse my "privilege".

I'm surprised something like that isn't available on CPW's website. But trying to wade through all the (mostly useless) info on thier website these days is pretty daunting.

The challenge today with limited license seasons like the 1st and 4th in units with OTC 2nd and 3rd tags makes it really complex to come up with a figure that's meaningful. CPW might not even have that figure. They are concerned about different things then us hunters often are.......

I read in a magazine (Outdoor Life I believe) that the DIY success rate for non-resident rifle hunters on public ground in Montana is 3%!

And see, that figure there demonstrates how difficult it is to figure it out. Those 160K hunters may be bull license holders but CPW fails to provide that info. Often I see info that is not labeled in a manner we understand. CPW releases "in house" info that 's not properly labeled because they already know what it denotes. I run into this all the time, I read info that is labeled in a manner that means nothing to me, but the CPW folks know the acronyms and the in house language.

But I would not be surprised in OTC bull tags are less than 15% currently.

Alamosa,

Have you seen this one? I just skimmed it, but it has a breakdown season by season in GMU's and DAU;'s, and somewhere might have a statewide stat.

First thing a I noticed though the statistical confidence interval is only 95%, not a particularly accurate confidence interval according to my biostats prof back in the day.

It would help if I posted the link......

https://cpw.state.co.us/Documents/Hunting/BigGame/Statistics/Elk/2016StatewideElkHarvest.pdf

Dayom. 40 antlerless muzzleloader hunters got only 3 cows in unit 711. Think i wil save my money.

Jag,
I hunted an OTC unit the 3rd rifle not far from 711. Didn't go out until after a snowstorm in the middle of the season. Hunted a morning, afternoon, and killed a bull the following morning. Not once did I see a human footprint in the snow in a day and half of hunting.

With that low of a success in a place like GMU 711 (which is a moderately decent unit), I don't think those blackpowder hunters got too far from their ATV's............

Thanks, Alpine. Great to hear that.

Im thinking of maybe trying to go for an archery cow hunt this fall. I know a guy from Ok who has killed about 15 elk there in the last 20 years in archery. Some years he got none and a few times he got a bull and cow iirc. Became aquainted with him and friendly while camping by each other for several years. He and my brother hunted together a few times and they helped each other backpack elk out.

He told me by phone he hasnt killed in a few years now and said he only saw 3 cows last season. Said it was full of hunters at the trail head and only one elk was taken by about 15 -20 guys the first week of archery this past season.

I dont know if he is blowing smoke and doesnt want competition or not.

I have always heard about getting back in away from the crowds. Dayom. I would leave camp at 430 at times and get a few miles back in at times and get set up before first light. Dayom. Just after first light i would have a hunter on me. This was with me leaving the trailhead at 10,300 and going up. Dayom. Im a flatlander.

I would go just to camp and hunt grouse but each year he tells me hes been seeing none to speak of.

Sometimes there are areas that are kinda' far back but still are popular--I've ran into that myself. A drainage in a Wilderness Area has become a bit of a zoo. The only reason I still go there is because I know specific avalanche chutes the elk hang out in, and they are not at all visible from the trail.

On the Uncompahgre Plateau I've seen an increasing number of grouse the past few years. 10 years ago I noticed I wasn't seeing any grouse, but apparently they are in a up cycle. This fall I jumped more grouse than I've seen in a long time.

I don't own an ATV. I hunted both ML season and 2nd rifle, 18 hunted days and 24 days in the field, I saw one calf elk, This was anywhere from 3 to 6 miles from a road. This was the first year in 20 + that I didn't take at least one elk in one of those two seasons