Been doing a lot of research on OTC elk hunting here in Colorado and it seems like the success rate of DIY public land elk hunting is really really low. I’ve talked to some Co-workers and other people I’ve met since I moved here and I hear a lot of I went elk hunting but not very many guys that actually killed an elk. Now I have no way to ascertain how hard these guys really hunt but man it sure is discouraging. I read the thread on here where the guy posted about his elk hunt where guys accused him of being on private land (road and fence posts in background blah blah blah ) and the reaction from guys is as if it’s nearly impossible to kill a decent bull on public land. With a herd 250,000 strong, and abundance of available tags both draw and OTC, it wouldn’t seem like a guy has a pretty good shot at a bull. I’m looking at 60+ units that offer OTC 2nd and 3rd season tags studying maps that break down public and private land and plan on doing a bunch of summer scouting hikes to see what the layout is in several units. I’ve also considered doing some bow hunting when you can actually use calls pretty effectively on them. Been told before in my life that the chances were slim of killing a certain animal and it never slowed me down before, but man it sure don’t sound like the odds are very high!

AC. Stop buy and I can give a lot of pointers, info on hunting elk in Colorado. I have been doing it for 40 years. Last year is first I haven't killed an elk in many many years.

The only thing I see in your post that is harder is " decent bull". That can be done , but it's a step harder. A fellow is usually looking at a draw area for that.

PM me and I can give you directions to my place.

Saddlesore, you sound like a great resource for hunting tips. I have hunted elk in SW Colorado for 7 of the past 8 years, without success. My hunting buddy and I have hunted 1st, 2nd and, as of last year, 3rd rifle seasons, all OTC except one. We have hunted guided and semi-guided on horseback, cabin hunts, from drop camps and one year even did a backpack hunt. This past season, we saw more elk than we've ever seen before....all on private land. I am an avid deer hunter and have taken deer all over OK and in S. Dakota but quickly found out that my 40+ years of experience hunting in the mountains and hills in OK and SD didn't produce the same successful results in CO.

I am an older hunter and I'm no longer physically able make the steep climbs and long stalks so, last year was my final elk hunt. Still, I look forward to reading the responses on this thread.

I went on my first elk hunt in 1978. For the first few years all I managed to do was carry a rifle while hiking and camping. Eventually I figured out a few basic hunting skills, I picked a hunting area and hunted it year after year until I knew it like my back yard, and that's when I started being successful at bringing home meat and antlers. That seems like a long time ago. Now I don’t care too much about killing an elk myself, but I try hard to help my hunting companions connect. I’ve learned to appreciate the sunrises more and more.

For over twenty-five years, I got an elk almost every year. Sometimes I got both a cow and a bull. My hunting buddies rarely got an elk and one guy asked me why. I replied that there are no secrets to hunting elk. You already know what you have to do to be successful. But most people won't or can't do what it takes to be successful.

You have to hunt every day of the entire season. You should arrive at camp no later than the day before opening day and don't leave until the day after the last day of the season. You can't expect to be successful if you hunt on just the weekend or if you hunt for just part of the season.

You have to hunt all day. The most productive times to hunt are just after dawn and just before sunset. So if you want to hunt during those times you have to do most of your hiking to and from the truck or camp, in the dark. Stay in the field for the entire day. Don't go back to camp for lunch. The first hour after sunrise is worth all of the rest of them right up to the last half hour before the sun sets, which is worth all the rest of them combined.

You have to learn to think like an elk. Pretend that you are an elk and you know that hunters are trying to kill you. Imagine where you would go and what you would do to stay alive. Then go there and do that. That's how you find elk. Hiding in the local bar doesn’t count.

You have to hunt the places that others won't or can't. Get away from the roads and hunt in the mean nasty hollows, where it's hard to get into and hard to get out of. Hunt where the elk are. 75% of the elk live in 25% of the available suitable habitat. You need to find out where that 25% area is and spend your time there. It’s valuable when learning to hunt elk to go with the attitude that killing a cow would be great. The big bulls will come in time, after you’ve educated yourself.

The biggest obstacle to overcome is thinking that you can't do it on your own...trust me, you can. Just get out there and do it. I hope this helps. Good luck. Have a safe and enjoyable hunt.

Send me a PM. I wonder how close you live to me.

KC

I had a similar experience. I had no problem killing deer, but could not connect with an elk to save my life. I finally went on a guided hunt and realized that I was approaching the problem all wrong. The individual skills were the same, but I wasn't thinking on the same scale as the guides. Hunting with them really opened my eyes. I feel like I could probably kill a Roosevelt on public land these days, but I'd still need help getting it out of the woods.


Okie John

I was lucky in that my Dad's side of the family had been hunting elk for what seemed like forever up in Idaho, Oregon and Montana. As a kid, it was learning through oral history. When I graduated college, I went on my first elk hunt. My Uncle took me out. I did see some legal bulls but nothing anywhere close to being in range. I next hunted in the Wallawa's in NE Oregon with some 2nd and 3rd cousins and managed my first bull. Nothing major, just a spike, but I had never shot an animal that didn't have 'ground shrinkage' until then. For two years I hunted with them, taking the only bulls that were taken by our group. When asked how I did it, I just credited my kinfolk's knowledge that I could remember.

saddlesore and KC are telling you the facts. You can get lucky and have someone else run one by you (I have, twice) or you can start learning to 'think like an elk'. For archery hunts, I always fell back on my turkey hunting experience. There are a lot of similarities between spring turkey hunting and hunting bulls in the rut.

I will end this by saying ANY bull is a TROPHY bull when they are on the ground with your tag on them.

Please pardon the “smart a&$” comment...in answering the title,
I generally use the same caliber! memtb

AC: It took me 10 years to kill my first rifle elk, not for want of trying. That was 25 years ago and I am about 15 for 25 since. All this goes out the window if you are calling during archery season. That is not my bailiwick. First lesson is just like real estate: location, location, location. Don't waste your time on summer scouting trips. Go fishing instead. I used to fly helos out of Ft. Carson over the mountains and it took me two fall hunts to learn that where the elk are in July is not where they will be in October. Talk to the game wardens at CPW and they can give you some good insights on where the elk are during the season in any given area, i.e. the Flattops, the West Elk, the Grand Mesa, Fossil Ridge, the Uncompagre, etc. . Lesson two, stay away from areas where ATV's are legal. You will want to shoot the ATVs instead of the elk. This means either hunting rugged terrain where the elk usually are often only passing through, or getting on a horse, either rented or with an outfitter, and riding in a couple of miles or more to get to your hunting area. Lesson three, learn the elk patterns in your area. They go up with heat and hunting pressure, and come down with cold and snow. Usually they are high early season and come down late season, but it can take more than a foot of snow--or two-- to get them moving. Some places they come down at night and go back up at first light. They are creatures of habit, but sometimes they change access routes from one drainage to the next over the course of a year or three. Ride until you find them. Four, once you find an area, stick with it for a few years. My biggest problem the first ten years was I changed areas every couple of years, instead of learning the patterns. Of course, some areas don't hold many elk and you are better off finding a more target rich environment. See lessons one through three above. I have never hunted private land, but have hunted fairly steep terrain above private land where the elk came down to feed in the edges. You will learn that black timber can hold a lot of elk, but you get no shot except by pure luck. I have never killed a trophy bull, but many 4 and 5 point raghorns, and as many cows. If you are driven by trophy hunting, then its a different strategy, one I've read about but never felt the need to pursue. Last, once you get an elk, and get it down the mountain, do your own butchering. Buy a 1 hp meatgrinder and a 15 cu.ft or larger freezer. I tried "game processors" on my first few animals, and never felt that I got back the same carefully cleaned animal I brought in. All the packages were labeled "chops" instead of rib steak, round steak, etc. If you put the work in to get the animal, its worth putting the work in to properly cut, grind, and freeze it. Finally, you can luck out and take an elk almost anywhere, but good luck doing it twice. There are areas, and there are areas. Find one of the latter. JMHO. PS. Saddlesore and KC have it right--just a different way of telling it.

I have found this helpful:



Big Game Maps


Still have to scout, navigate through public land, etc but it does give a better idea of where the elk are or will be at hunting time instead of hunting areas where the elk typically are not there. Some times elk will only occupy parts of a certain unit.

People kill bulls every year but the numbers are shrinking IMHO.
I grade bulls into 3 levels- raghorn, not bad (smaller 4x4,5x5 etc)and nice. Real scientific I know. I haven't seen a nice bull living or dead in the past decade on public land.
The last couple years the elk have bunched up on private land within a 1/2 mile of the main highway and there wasn't any really nice ones in a herd of 2-300. I've worn myself out looking for stragglers that didn't get the memo the last several years.
Last season I hunted 2nd combined and did not even hear a rifle shot. I saw 1 mulie hanging in camp. I have hunted this area for 20 years and put meat in the freezer most years during the first decade hunting that area.
I will do something different this year even if it's staying at home.

My first year was more of a scouting session with my bow, only elk in range was a spike (not legal). Second year I went rifle, never saw a single elk during the season on public land. Third year had legal elk in bow range six times in the last four days, but no clear shot and then the wind would shift and they'd split. Had a rifle cow tag for the same area, but by the time rifle season came around all the elk had already moved to the private ground below.

Have not researched it, but does Colorado publish their stats. Rifle success is about 19% on bulls here in Oregon. Those with knowledge and time can of course beat the odds. The municipal lets go hunting guy needs some serious luck to do better than 1 in 5 years. Archery elk runs about 13%.

People have some great and very real anecdotes here. I've been hunting for 39 years, and elk on and off since 1996. First elk was a Roosevelt in Oregon and then a cow in 2013 and bull in 2015. All of them were on publicly assessable land. All rifle seasons - though I did bow hunt one season. My experience in Colorado is that in the last four years there have been exponetially more hunters in the woods. It seems we literally cannot get away from the hunters. We will be six miles away from the nearest drivable road, and walk into a remote spike camp. Then get to our favorite spot for opening morning a full hour early only to have three hunters walk through the exact park we were hoping to see (and have seen) elk as the sun breaks. This year someone put up a spike camp less than 100 yards from this meadow, with a campfire. Talk about scaring elk away. Last year we had hunters bugling non-stop while we were chasing a bull through the woods. Every time they'd bugle, the elk would run another 200 yards farther away. It was maddening. I don't think we suck as hunters either, this year we saw over 100 elk during first season. Only one, yes one, of which was a confirmed legal bull. I couldn't get a shot...literally because of other hunters possibly being behind the bull. (They shot and missed it so I knew about where they were.) Out of those 100, six were unconfirmed as to sex, as in we couldn't see the head. But even then the odds were not in favor of killing a bull. I will post a link here with our hunt once I finish the editing and post it on youtube. I don't have all the elk on video, but plenty enough to get the point.

For the coming season we are looking at other states and possibly a bow season. We've been hunting first season in a draw only unit, and this year we stayed for the first weekend of second season as one of the guys didn't draw a first season tag. I can say this, we will never hunt a second season elk hunt in Colorado again. I'd rather hunt deer in the Midwest...and I'd see less people too. And less damage to the forest. The second season crowd was so desperate to find camp spots they were clearing new camp sites, making deep ruts in undisturbed meadows, and 4-wheeling like it was mud-racing. It was heartbreaking, not what hunting should be.

It used to be about a 10% success rate for bulls in CO. And it's been my observation it is the same guys in that 10% just about every year.......

Interesting responses, a little encouragement mixed with some despair, sounds like hunting....grin. I most certainly intend to give it hell next season and will be obsessing about it from now til then (that’s just how I am). I plan on it being a solo hunt wherever it may be as I’m not likely to find anyone that is willing to spend the whole season out there in the mountains living out of a tarp tent. I’ve got some helpful PM’s and had a helpful conversations by phone. I really was just curious if the success/failure rate is as far spread as it seems and I guess the answer to that is kind of. Thanks for the responses.

I’am new to 24CF. I signed up today basically so I could say “Thank You” to everyone here for the years of information I’ve been able to learn from your knowledge and apply it...You’ve helped to prevent a couple of poor buying decisions on rifles. Educated me with load data which saved me time and money. And, you all, for the most part have a way, like most gunners and hunters can speak a fact or opinion straight at the problem and make it entertaining and educational to read while also gently showing a newbie that he may or may not have their brain fully engaged before asking you a question...Learning with laughter has a way of making information stick in a persons brain pan. With that said. I say Thank You again guys and possibly ladies for the information I’ve found helpful.
Now, back to hunting and Akcubs delemia on new public land hunting. You’ve gotten several solid ideas on how to proceed including the part about other hunters possibly being in the same Unit you’re trying to hunt screwing up your plans time and again. I can speak to all of this personally and jump on with some ideas that may be useful since I only hunt OTC public land for Rosey Elk on the Oregon Coast. Now, I’ve been at it for 40 years straight always hunting the first season which only last 4 actual brutal days and nights. The coast range is rough terrain to say it nicely....To say what the terrain is really like requires too many Fbombs. Akcub, I started with maps, then topo maps. I used them to familiarize myself with the areas on paper. Then I talked to ODFWife (lol) to get their thoughts on herd counts and general areas where elk herds were holding, I started my full on research when deer season opened which gave me 30 days to hunt Blacktail Deer while looking for elk. I went weeks seeing only deer but no elk. I’d see old elk sign daily but no fur. Once the weather changed to cold rain and wind...Then I started seeing Rosey elk out. Quick deduction was warmer weather, low pressure from hunters, timber was there hangout...Sh1T weather with rain and wind would push them out into clearings. 1) find a unit that holds elk 2) hunt the area for deer if possible 3) be ready “which you are” to hunt timber if weather makes it necessary 4) On nasty weathered nights and mornings watch your clear cut edges, openings surrounded by timber and meadows. 5) As its already been said, be ready for other hunters to ruin you first plan. So have a Backup ready to go. If you can hunt hard and away from others you’ll increase you chances. I killed my 31 elk in 2017. Not bad for a 40 year career of luck! My best to you in 2018. I have a feeling you”ll get into some fur right off.

Although last year I didn't draw a tag, previous to that I hunted 1st rifle 9 years in a row, skunked the first 3 years, since then it's been 5 bulls and one cow for me, all on public land.....but we hike in over 4 miles one way, every day....

1. it's an emotional sport of highs and lows
2. there is no more beautiful place to be, no matter what
3. hours and hours of study, tons of workout, and still no success for most of my years. I think I'm 2 for 9 on elk trips now. all public land.
4. if I lived anywhere near Saddlesore or KC, I'd be inviting them over for dinner once a week. great guys and offer tons of advice. you are very lucky to have these resources available. use it.

Good luck!

This.




And this. If you can learn a few good spots that aren't near the road and you're willing to pack one out your odds go way up. IMO, it's more about where you hunt than how you hunt, and that can change from year to year so it pays to have a few different "honey holes."

I've followed the elk success rates in Colorado for many years and watched the overall success fluctuate somewhere around 25%, mostly a little under but a few years a little better.
One real interesting thing I once read was that if you exclude the guided hunters, ranch hunters, special access hunters, and look at the success of just the public land DIY hunters that success rate drops from 1 in 4 to about 1 in 7 (about 15%).
Take it a step further - exclude cows and take just the successful bull hunters from that 15% and you get a smaller number. Not sure what that number is but safe to say you probably don't kill a bull on an OTC tag unless you know what you are doing.

My overall experience is typical of some of the other guys here. I hunted public land for many seasons before I killed an elk. Then something clicked and I killed at least one elk each year. That lasted for about 15 years. The past couple of seasons I have seen elk but not as many and have not gotten shots.

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

I think if the dow put out the hunter success on OTC non-resident, unguided elk on public, they would take a big pay cut!! People would stay away by the 10's of thousands!

If you work hard, hunt smart you can be one of the 10% that kill 90% of the elk that are killed. Of course if you secretly polled every elk hunter you would find that every single one is an elk genius and just about killed himself "hunting his ass off". There is no such thing as a self-professed "road hunter" it is always those other guys... those slobs>>> pointing to the next camp over!

The best way to learn is find a mentor in the 10%. Short of that spend tons of time and cover tons of country with an open eye and an open mind that's how I did it. A hundred days/year hiking 5-15 miles of elk country every day and learning from each and every encounter. In just a few years you will find elk are easy, until the trigger is pulled, still working on that and it gets worse each year even as the finding part is so easy...

In no time you will be passing on lots of bulls looking for a bigger one, or closer to camp...

This is one of the best threads I’ve read on this site in a long time. Elk hunting is darned hard, especially if you are a flat lander with limited budget and vacation time. If I can add anything to this great thread without repeating a lot of the same points, I’d say you have to expect to see an elk, and keep at it with this expectation.

Just seeing an elk an elk is a huge win as a newbie. If you can find one, then you can kill one. The darn things will show up in the ‘wrong’ places and at the ‘wrong’ time. As KC stated “hunt all day” and I will add expect to see one at any time of the day.

On public land, I say forget sitting on the parks and openings. Concentrate on the travel areas around these spots. At first and last light I like to be slowly moving around grazing sites hoping to catch them up and moving and covering as much ground as I can. There’s so much area that the odds are slim of just sitting and having an elk come walking into an ambush. Also elk are much more forgiving of movement the deer. They smell you and you are screwed, but if you stay downwind you can work them and move with a herd to get a shot IF you can spot them.

SS,
That means you've had 95%+ success rate.......not bad, eh?

If it was a 100% success it wouldn't be hunting. Regardless of how much experience and effort, luck still plays a role........

Everyone hunts to kill an elk, but that's just one of the reasons we hunt. I haven't killed one for about three years now. I've had my chances, and I chose not to shoot for a variety of reasons that I probably can't adequately explain. I intend to be back out there next year, and for as many years thereafter as God will let me have, and I will be eternally grateful for every one of them.

Best post yet.

Good stuff posted, an elk and hunting primer. To further unpack some of the tips:

Learning the terrain and animal patterns on that specific terrain takes more than one season and a combination of boot time plus brain in gear. Don't merely see an event but think about what it means, the factors involved, when it happened, what happened just before and just after, as much of why as you can. Has it occurred more than once in this type of terrain feature?

i.e. I nudged a Rocky Mtn. bull off of an isolated flat bench on a huge timbered mountainside, and tracked his escape sneak. My next time there was three years later. I placed a young hunter 300 yards out to watch the escape route the previous bull had taken, and then slowly still hunted the bench. The young hunter got a 40 yd. shot at a walking 4x5 bull as it sneaked out past him.

Conclusion: Where an elk or a herd went when spooked last year or ten years ago is the most likely place where an elk spooked in the same place will go. Good elk bedding spots or even single beds may be used for decades. If you find one or move a bull from one, remember it and think about how to approach it in different wind conditions.

I have killed several elk and moose by backtrailing. i.e. late one afternoon in snow I hit the trail of a small herd of Rocky Mtn. elk made during the night before heading down from a timbered bench into clearcuts. Hmmm... way too old to be worth following. But I assumed that the elk had returned uphill by a different route and that backtrailing them would lead me to where they likely were at the moment, in the afternoon. A quarter mile up the back trail into timber I killed a young bull that had gotten up to feed in a tiny opening.

My son tells his nephews that it will take them five years of serious hunting to kill their first Roosevelt elk. He got skunked the first three years in one of the lowest success areas in the PNW, but he learned elk and hunter patterns in that specific combo of roads and terrain. Since then he has killed a bull almost every year in that area for 20 years where the success rate is abysmal.

Not to question what you say here because you're quite right but how many people - even retired have the option/time/ability to spend 2 or 3 or 4 months a year hiking/scouting.

My buddy and I went on our very 1st Elk hunt, Fall of 2016. We did the ‘2nd rifle’ season, CO, public land, North of Gunnison. We did hook our wagons to two who have hunted the area for 15 years. I read some & studied maps ahead of the hunt.

As events would have it, I got a nice 5x5 at 0900 opening morning. My buddy got a 4x4 the next afternoon. Both of these were the only elk spotted by the 4 of us during the hunt. There were very few shots in the area. I’ll be the 1st to admit there was some luck involved. I also told myself I planned to go where the elk ‘may be’, not where another saw a few years back.

One will never know if they don’t go. I may be back next year, no expectations on the outcome.

All I said was i did it, it works, and in addition the knowledge translates to new covers as well, given similar cover. If you can't do it you will never be in the 10%... If you WON'T do it then you better find a mentor, or pay for such. It is simply the price of admission to the club, there are no (effective) shortcuts, unless you subscribe to luck, as most do.

I was filleting a Walleye by moonlight once and a my drunken buddy couldn't believe it could be done, I said this one was easy but some of those first 1000 were much more difficult...
Tracking up a bull with fresh snow is not difficult at all, today... but some of those rags back in 1986 were SMART !!

So, if you can't spend 100 days a year hiking in elk country you won't be successful?

Got it.

If you spend ten seasons working the same zone you should know it pretty well, after three you should not be completely without some idea of some hidey holes

I think scouting falls in along with shooting and maybe campcraft in regards to significant off-season skills. Most of us have probably seen extreme examples one way or the other - like maybe the guy you encounter opening day and he asks you directions, or the guy that declares he hit the paper plate last week at 100 yds with all 3 shots so he is good to go, or the guy that arrives in spike camp with 'state-of-the-art' alpine equipment (except that it was state of the art in 1995 the last time it was used).

At the other end of the spectrum you have those guys who would be out there hiking trails and shooting anyway whether they had an elk tag for that year or not. Personally I need to hike those miles in the mountains just for the exercise and mental benefits. I suspect that the best hunting marksmen are the ones who enjoy visiting the range to shoot for the sake of shooting rather than those who may only practice with a shot at an elk as their goal. I've found that some of my weekend trips to look around at a potential hunting area were sometimes more fun than the actual hunt itself. My dogs would agree.

No question that elk are found in different places during the season than the rest of the year, but being familiar with the terrain matters, and bulls will leave evidence of their presence that is specific to previous hunting/rut seasons. Those particular bulls may be long gone but the places they liked are usually the same places the next generation likes. Also, if you are hunting cows, there are places where summer and winter ranges overlap. That is not to say that any of that is a substitute for returning to an area you have hunted previously. After a few years in a unit you can begin to learn that when the weather does 'this' elk will be 'there' or when pressure comes from 'here' elk will do 'that'. Most of my successful hunts had long strings of contingency plans to account for weather, or if an area already occupied by hunters, and so on. Even if it is your first time in an area you have to have a handful of places that you want to try on various days.

There are always 2 bull tags in our hunting party of 4. We’ve hunted west of Salida since 2010 and gotten a total of 4 bulls and a couple of cows. It can be tough.

Expat

That's above average then. Two hunters, eight years, four bulls = 4 for 16 or 25% success.

I hunt and live in CO..... I had over 100 miles of hiking, and about 15 Days (over 3 seasons) into the bull I killed this year. Took me several years to figure out that elk hunting ain’t deer hunting.

You can walk yourself into a deer, they live pretty much everywhere. Elk on the other had, especially post-rut bulls, seem to live in very specific places... and seem a bit more habitual about it.

Corny as it sounds.... I went full-on Randy Newberg style last year, and it paid off. I spent hours on Google Earth and OnX Maps. I found spots that looked tough to get to, and offered all the things a recovering bull would want. Made a trip in early, saw encouraging sign, and then spent most of the season up there. We had opportunities every day, but we still had to work very hard.

There are some guys on here that have forgotten more about elk hunting than I’ll even know.... threads like this can really help the less seasoned guys like myself. I too appreciate the info y’all.

As I mentioned in my earlier post, I'd share the link to our hunt when the editing was done. Finished editing it. And here's the link. And if you like it, please give us a thumbs up. Thank you!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyfXRzuBdf4

Cool video, it’s kind of funny because I have previously stumbled across and viewed your videos from 2015 and 2016 and it’s the same scenery. If you don’t mind, please pm me what unit you hunted the last 3 years so I don’t go there!....grin