Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Colorado GMU 54

I'll be the one gasping for air in a cloud of steam on a red mule with a speckled blaze face.

When will you be there? We are rolling into Gunnison on the 17th of October. We are planning on staying until the 28th.

I'll be rolling into Gunnison next weekend to hunt the last week of archery season, will be backpacking into the West Elk Wilderness. With any luck, it'll be more than just an expensive camping trip.

Let me know how it goes, I would like to here your stories. I am still looking for a good camping spot above Mill Creek if you find one.

Any feed back about conditions, the rut, and where the elk are would be welcome.

Other posts are saying they are starting to get active and hanging out around 9,500+ feet. Some moisture has begun to fall in the high country and the weather up there is cooling off.

Good luck

Will be there the second rifle season, husband and I taking mules (this will be their third western states hunt) to ride and pack, meeting a friend there. Who knows, we might all end up gettin coffee and pie someplace together!

Would like to hear your stories over pie and coffee. We'll be the ones in the wall tent with maroon Ford truck and Maroon Ford Excursion. Bring your group and lets tell some stories.

Anybody on here ever check out soap creek during 2nd rifle? One of the guys in my group thinks it could be the cats meow because the outfitter in that area told him they kill a lot of bulls real close to camp. Looks like it should be a pumkin patch to me but I've never been there.

Were at on soap creek? it runs north /south on western side of 54. It is several miles long.

Probably anywhere from the reservoir to as far north as we can drive for a base camp, most of the guys in my group like to camp close to the truck and make little 3-4 mile loops out from there!

nick62:

You can camp in the Big Soap Park in early August and be surrounded by so many elk that they keep you awake at night. But they won't be there during rifle hunting season.

I've hunted out of a base camp at the end of the Soap Creek Road several times. You can drive all the way into Big Soap Park with a 4X4 vehicle. It will take about an hour to drive the last five miles. There will be other camps in there for sure and there won't be any elk out in the open. No one kills bulls close to base camp. Who ever claimed that bulls are killed close to camp is full of $hit. You have to day hike or backpack up out of the basin to get into elk.

We setup a comfortable base camp in Big Soap Park then did short backpack hunts up out of the basin onto the ridges to the east and northeast between the basin and the ridge top. We would sit on a point not too far from our little backpack tents and wait for the elk to show. East Soap Creek, specially the east slopes above the creek, has yielded some good bulls.

A lot of the horses that Ferros rents are used by people who setup base camps in Big Soap Park.

KC

Our plans have changed. We are now renting a condo in Crested Butte. Means most likely we'll be hunting the Axtell/Whetstone/Carbon areas.

Any one been out in this area as of late? How has it been? Any elk moving down out of the Soap Creek area yet or are they staying high as long as possible?

2 weeks and counting till 3rd rifle, any info is appriciated.

Was over on the east side of the unit 1st rifle, hunters everywhere! Thought for a while it was opening day of pheasant season in Western Kansas. We had horses and mules, rode in 5-8 miles each day and most of the meadows had camps in them. We had 3 guys with either/or tags and my cow tag, saw one legal animal.

On another note.

Does anyone know anything about the private land tags in this area? Are those for any private property or do the properties need to be a certain size?

Any one from around the area that may know a private land owner that would be grateful to get an elk off of his property or know where to go to begin to locate said land owner?

wshep820:

Those tags are good for any private land within the specified boundaries. Getting permission is the hard part. The landowners submit crop damage claims but won't let anyone hunt on their property. I suppose that it might be fruitful to contact the local office of the Div Wildlife & Parks in Gunnison and inquire who has made claims for crop damage in the past. Let me know if you have any luck. I would be happy to join you.

KC

Great idea KC. I was wondering what the Div of Wildlife might know about it. If they don't or can't provide me with names they may be able to point me in a frutiful direction.

I'll let you know if I find out anything.

No elk in Soap creek Basin but if you hiked up top there were lots of elk. The higher the better.

Thanks DayPacker.

You said were going out 2nd season with your son and son in-law. How did it go?

Daypacker:

That's kind of what I was guessing because of the warm/dry conditions. I saw the best forage up high when I hiked through the upper basins a month ago. We will be backpacking in a week from now and we will camp at 10,000' and hunt uphill from there.

Did you get over onto the east side of the ridge so you could look down into the West Elk Creek gorge?

KC