Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Finding Mature Bulls on Public Land

You should have just hunted an alfalfa field.

5 pages and only small pissing matches?? Amazing restraint fellas.
Post rut bulls where I hunt will generally be in groups of nothing but bulls. Mature bulls groups will be much smaller due to their nature and there being so few of them in CO OTC units. Often the big guys will be from solo to 3 in #. (I'm talking 320+ bulls, and they are NOT common)

The larger groups of rags/5's are very easy to kill one from as are the replacement herd bulls that make believe they own the cows when owning cows is meaningless. It sounds like you've been shooting these guys. They are probably the easiest bull to take, followed by the bachelor groups of slightly older bulls. Every once in a while there will be what was referred to above as a "spindly 6" in these bachelor groups. Either he has really good genetics as a younger bull or he hasn't figured out (and is about to) that he should have gone off alone.

The big bulls are amazing animals in OTC areas. Watching them will teach you just how good they are and how pathetic your woodsman ship is. If you really want to drive this point home track one for a day. Holy crap are they good. Kill a few in their beds at spear throwing distance and if you aren't excited take up another sport.

Same as deer if you really want to kill a bigger animal you simply have to hunt units where there are more of them. My whitetail wall got a lot better when I switched from the NE states to the mid-west states.

In my experience the mature bulls are miles away from cow concentrations until heavy snow forces them to play fast catch-up, which they do in just a day or two if need be, then they be just a ridge away from them noisy wimmenfolk. But they don't make the mistakes that those others do, daylight in the open? Forget about it. But you can pick up their tracks and start your day's education there.

Enjoy chasing them now and never miss an opportunity, a buildup of the birthday count is the kiss of death for a serious elk hunter.

DIY hunts are like fishing. You can fish all your life, do all the right things, but maybe only once or twice in 40+ years of doing so have caught what I would consider a trophy fish.

Success is the intersection of chance and preparation.

,,,,,and perspiration, sometimes.

Llama,

That was a great post. Thanks for taking the time.

Post rut the bulls will hang in small groups away from cows. Basically find the area on the topo map that makes you say “OMG I hope I never have to hunt that!” and get where you can glass it.

The good news is you can start finding bulls pretty soon after the rut, and locate them before the season. They love thick, nasty country.

It’s normal to hike hard, bloody hours getting into position for 90 minutes of glassing. Around here bulls will be in the nastiest place possible that’s within a mile of water.

If you read T Inman’s posts from times past you will see that the best way to see lots of bulls is to go afield with only a cow tag. He has the pictures to prove it.

That's bad ass

Face it.....you'd perspire if Buzz showed up in camp.

Exactly who doesn't see trophy bulls with a cow tag?

Great pic, RC.

Great pics, but they look like young 5 X's

The front one is a 6x6. The top points aren't real big but he had a good spread. The back one is a 5x5.

SE Oregon here. They are out there, and the best opportunities are during our Sept archery season when they're announcing their presence. When the ruts over, they leave the cows and run silent.

Jeffrey,

Congratulations on being an elk killer. If your buddies keep hunting with you eventually they will score but likely always get 1 to your 4 animals. As mentioned earlier the same guys kill elk regularly- more effort, fewer mistakes more focus, better conditioning & better physical condition, persistence pays off.

Big bulls on public happen less often than finding the woman of your dreams on a blind date or the house of your dreams at a bargain price before it hits the market. Be lucky is terrible advice. Work hard to put yourself into a position to take advantage of good luck.

smokepole is just a keyboard smartarse troll that probably has never killed an elk with a bow and arrow, know`s very little about bowhunting. > alfalfa is elk candy .

my biggest bull elk killed with a bow scored 376 B.C. my son`s biggest with a bow is even bigger and that was near an alfalfa field 1/2 mile from the public land he killed his biggest bull i called in , we have killed other bulls and cows over 10 years with our bows too > always bet on an alfalfa field if your a smart bowhunter hunting elk,deer or antelope .

ok Smokepole / troll tell us some more keyboard B.S. > MYSELF I JUST WANNA HELP BOWHUNTERS HAVE A CHANCE AT AN ELK,DEER OR ANTELOPE < Pete53

LOL, sorry I pissed in your Wheaties, Petey. The fact is, 95+% of public land suitable for a DIY hunt is not within 1/2 mile of alfalfa fields. And the public land that is within 1/2 mile of alfalfa fields is also within 1/2 mile of easy vehicle access. Not where anyone with half a brain would recommend pursuing bulls.

Keep in mind Jeffrey that in many OTC units there are no big bulls, or at best they are so few that hunters never see one, unless they tour the winter range later after the bulls have to come out of hiding to survive.

So in lieu of seeing a big boy the hunters change the meaning to what they do see, a rag is now "a nice bull". A 5x is a big boy or "herd bull". Anything with 6+ is then HUGE MONSTROUS etc. It is more of a comment on people than elk.

You dont say where you hunt or how tags are allocated (which is fine) but if you were in a CO OTC unit I would venture that well over 80% of those hunters will never lay eyes on a 320 bull on ground that they could shoot in season. And that # is if they spent their 35 years putting in the effort. The chances of spending your 5-7 days/year and killing one in a few years time coming from out of state is simply astronomical.

(Of course I know some who have done just that!). But one should never confuse luck with skill if one is to remain grounded in reality.

Enjoy the dance for its own sake, if you take home the prettiest girl chalk it up to her drinking too much.

Any CPW officer will tell you that Colorado manages elk for quantity, not quality. That is assuming they do any managing at all. Gov Polis now has three animal rights activist on the CPW Commission. That in itself will tell you where Colorado is heading.

Great thread. I have never hunted elk and will probably never have/make the opportunity, but I have really enjoyed reading it. Jeffrey, big bull or not, I consider your success extraordinary. Congrats. To all the others who helped make this an educational read, thank you.

I'll be in the Gunnison National Forest the first two weeks of September. If anyone anticipates hunting elk or mule deer within about 20 miles of Crested Butte, let me know and I'll be happy to give you a scouting report. I'll be hiking and biking every day, and I enjoy trying to find animals even though I can't hunt them.