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Barb's Elk Hunt
October 2005
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This year, Barb drew an anterless elk tag for Area 61. Steve found a rancher offering exclusive access to his 640 acres of private land in Area 61. We decided to check it out instead of hauling the RV back up on the Uncompahgre Plateau.
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So we drove up highway 62 over Dallas Divide (toward Telluride) the next morning. We arrived just after sunrise and found a heard of over 50 elk running across the property. Part of the herd jumped the fence in front of us and into the field across the road.
When we got out to hike the property, we heard elk bugling all around us for the next hour or more!
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We spent the next 5 hours hiking the property scouting for elk sign and checking out the property boundaries.
In addition to a stock pond for the owner's 40 head of angus cattle grazing on the property, we found this "seep". Where 2 draws converge, an old well and spring seep up creating a bog. Elk tracks, scent and other sign were all over the seep!
We decided this would be an exciting place to hunt!
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The next evening we went in to scout the seep at sunset. However, we began to get discouraged after sitting in the rain for an hour and seeing no elk. Then the bugling began - again, all around us.
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About an hour later, Steve spotted a bull and some cows jumping the fence onto the property.
For the next 45 minutes, until it got too dark to see, we watched 38 cows, bulls, calves and yearlings wander down the draw to the seep - all within 75 to 200 yards from us! The first bull was a large 6-point bull with white tips on his antlers. As we quietly snuck out in the dark with headlamps, we heard the elk continuing to come down, several more bulls bugling, cows and calves mewing. There could have been maybe 100 elk that passed through the draw that night! We were extremely excited!
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We decided the best way to hunt this property would be from a blind at the seep. We went in again before the season started and set up the blind. It was a clear evening and that night we only saw 1 spike bull elk that we called in with our cow call.
Finally, it was opening day and we headed off - our ATV in tow!
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Here's Steve looking for elk from the blind with his binoculars.
The first evening we watched 3 cow elk pass through the draw but not come down to the seep. Barb decided she didn't have a good shot at them. We listened - again - to the evening bugling accompanied by coyotes singing. We hiked out at dark and planned our strategy for a sunrise hunt the next morning.
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We arrived at 6:45 the next morning. It was legal to shoot at 7:00 am. As we pulled up we spotted 2 cow elk on the property from the road and heard bugling surrounding us in the distance. We decided to stick with our plan to sneak down into our blind at the seep and wait for elk to come down.
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It paid off!
About 7:40 am Barb heard rocks on the hillside to the left of the blind and saw 4 mature cow elk meandering down. They turned away to pass behind the seep so she knew she wouldn't get a close shot. She held her sights on the 4th cow standing broadside to us and squeezed the trigger.
This photo shows the approximate distance of 205 yards - according to the range finder - from the blind (about 1/2" from the left in the photo) to the elk where she stood to the right of the old well (just off right edge of photo).
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Some curious bystanders arrived to watch us clean the elk and wonder how we were going to get animal as big as a horse out of there. We wondered too!
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We hiked back out to the truck and drove back to get our ATV and cart. There's a rugged old road that went in past the stock pond and to the seep. Luckily, she expired only about 20 yards off this road and we were able to get to her with the ATV.
With considerable effort - sparing you the details - we finally got her loaded and slowly drove back to the truck.
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When we finally reached the truck back at the county road we were quite surprised to watch people parasailing behind pickup trucks up and down the road while we loaded up.
6 hours after Barb shot the elk we finally had everything loaded up and left the property.
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What a great hunt and wonderful experience! Even if we weren't there hunting, the experience of hearing all the bugling and seeing so many of these majestic animals in their natural environment was tremendous.
Thanks alot, Alan!
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