Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting It is possible to get lucky on public land in Colorado

Great bull

Nice!

Crickets

Beautiful bull and well done!


ddj

Thanks everyone. I appreciate it.

Getting him out was in fact the trick. Once I got my Dad and Uncles there, we changed our mind a couple different times on our approach. In the end we figured gut him out and get started......if we get to a point we can't go any further, then we can go to plan "b" (which we didn't have yet). In the end, we used one of those cabelas game carts with dual wheels. We loaded him on there....tied him on and drug him out whole (less the guts). There was lots of sweating, swearing, arguing, etc., but we got him out to the road and loaded him on a trailer, cart and all.

If I think of it, I will take pictures of how the game cart faired. One wheel has quite the wobble.....and the main frame has a new arc shape to it. We are already looking at how to reinforce for next season. But we can't complain too much....the thing probably paid for itself in that one trip.

I did have to warn my Dad part way through to take it easy because if he had "the big one" out there, that he would be drug out second.

Thanks again everyone. When I get time, I will throw a tape on him and come back with a score. I have my guess. Any guesses?

I am in India for the week working, so it will probably not be until this weekend.

LMAO, been there, I hear you!!

That's not all luck! Congrats on a great DIY public ground bull....

Very cool!! Congrats on a job well done.

Enjoy him. You could hunt another 25 years and not see a better bull on public lands again. My group got one like than 15 years ago and haven't seen anything even close mass-wise since including in the other camps around us.

Nice bull. Congrats

Obviously considering it was family relationships (Dads, Sons, Uncles, Nephews)........it was all very clean polite swearing.

Thanks again all.
I am pretty thrilled about it........and really struggling to decide what mount style. In fact, I would love some suggestions from you guys/gals.

I was thinking a shoulder mount on a pedestal with the horns tipped back. I was looking at some pictures and kind of like the chin up a bit and maybe bugling. The pedestal I would make out of some rustic barn boards.

Thoughts?

Well, my "big adventure" with hauling out a whole animal wasn't even an elk, and was with two of my best hunting buddies so the swearing was anything but clean and polite.

Your idea for the mount sounds great, go for it!

Very cool and gives a flatlander something to hope for! LOL'd about the game cart-I've suffered the results of a few catastrophic game cart failures on hogs and deer! They're usually cheap pos's so I took to welding my own. Of course, when some stranger walks up to you on public land, right in the middle of cussing yourself out for stupid design or crappy welding...you get the idea!

Great bull! Congrats!

Great bull!!

We may start calling this cart "the wee little cart that could".

As I said...it looks like hell afterwards, but it got the job done. If it means that I have to buy a new one for to group to get my Dad or Uncle's elk out next time.....so be it.

Very very nice bull.Congrats. I have never hunted on private land in CO and have taken some nice bulls, but not that good. I'd guess it is in the 330-340 range

First off big congrats on that bull. I got ahold of an old canoe dolly thats bent up to try and make one of those things a while back. I just drug my deer ( first deer for me) about 350 yrds and the dolly would have been great. My taxidermist just started doing elk mounts in a free standing big flower pot format. I wish i had pics of it. He makes a nice wooden pot and wieghs it down somehow then puts a post in it to mount the elk to. He adds some fake vegetation and old timber to complete the look. They look great and can be freestanding or pushed into a corner. He also sarted putting a piece of tree next to shoulder mounts on the wall and that looks killer with a deer. I think I'll try that on mine. Great bull man!

I've been lucky in many public establishments, so yes.

Way to go on the bull. Going where others can't/won't is always a good thought.

I've gotta ask, is that how you got lucky at other "public establishments??"

congrats! thats a fine bull from public land and and the fact you got it off public land under fair chase conditions makes it a much better trophy in my mind that if you shot some farm raised bull, like someone might shoot on some hunting preserve even if it was much larger!