From East to West, A First Western Hunting Experience – Part 1 – January 23, 2018

From East to West, a First Western Hunting Experience – Part 1 

By Todd Waldron and Jeffrey Jones, October 2016

For thousands of eastern hunters, the dream of a remote backcountry DIY elk hunt in the magnificent Rocky Mountain West is at the very top of our wish list.  The allure of enjoying America’s abundant wild public lands and pursuing one of North America’s most beloved big game animals is a fire in our souls that can’t be extinguished.

Jeff Jones and I met at the 2016 Backcountry Hunters and Anglers (BHA) National Rendezvous in Missoula, Montana.  It was the start of a great friendship. This was the first time either of us attended BHA’s unforgettable annual event and it turned out to be three incredible days of meeting great people, exploring Missoula and talking all things ‘western hunting and public lands’. We kept in close touch after the Rendezvous and by August decided it was time to put our dreams to reality and experience a DIY public land elk hunt in Southwest Colorado. This was the first western hunt either of us had ever planned. The decision to hunt Colorado’s rugged San Juan Mountains was based upon numerous considerations – including over the counter (OTC) tag availability, time of year, anticipated weather, CO elk harvest data and the amount of road-less public land available to hunt. 

Here’s how we broke it down:

• We were looking for a reasonable opportunity to hunt a legal & representative bull, have fun, be safe, enjoy the trip and make it home safely to our families.
• Colorado has abundant OTC tags for their 2nd, 3rd, and 4th seasons. We chose 2nd season, which usually falls during the last week of October.
• This is a post rut hunt – meaning there wouldn’t be much bugling. Our hunch was that there would be snow in the high country by then and the elk would be heading for transitional areas that lead to winter range, which in that country is generally somewhere in the 8,000-9,000 foot range.
• For harvest data, we chose a unit that had at least a 20% success rate, which is considered good for public land hunts – keeping in mind we were looking for any legal bull to fill our winter’s table.
• We wanted a unit with at least 50% public land.
• We sought out areas that were more than 3-4 miles from any trails or roads that allowed motor vehicle access.That was really it – then it was time to mark the calendar and start our desktop scouting.
  

  After extensive planning, including dozens of hours of Google Earth analysis, map review, and discussion, we identified 6-8 potential hunting locations within our chosen unit, uploaded waypoints into the GPS units, finalized the travel plans & pack lists and met at the Memphis airport in late-October.  It was the beginning of a great adventure, as we then drove all night across the wind-swept southern plains to Durango, CO.  While the sun crept over the craggy summits of the nearby West Needles, we rested at a local coffee shop for 30 minutes to have some much needed ‘fuel’. It was time to double-check the maps, verify our backcountry plan and then set off at daylight for a spot we hoped would be teeming with elk.

Upon leaving the blacktop in Durango, it took two hours of driving on a high elevation U.S. Forest Service road to get to the trailhead. This was a harrowing drive up a seasonal mountain road with countless switchbacks, no guard rails and mind bending drop offs. The trailhead was perched in Colorado’s paper-thin air at 10,500 feet  – well above the most popular trail going into this country down along the main watershed. 

Lesson # 1 – Everything is farther away from town than you think on steep, switch-backed Forest Service roads. It takes twice as long to travel these roads as you might expect. Bring a 4 wheel drive vehicle and a weather radio or satellite phone. We would have been ‘toast’ up there if it snowed. 

 Upon leaving the lightly-used trailhead behind, we then hiked five miles into our preferred hunting area. It took nearly four hours with heavy 50 pound packs and steep terrain.  Going downhill is even tough in this country. During the descent, we lost 2,000 ft of elevation and eventually set up camp next to a small creek in a hidden basin whose nearby finger ridges might be a good transition zone between the high line and elk wintering range. First things first. Jeff had wisely purchased a 4L platypus water filtration system and the freshly filtered, cold creek water was the best we had ever tasted.  After a quick bite to eat, we hit the rack in Jeff’s Seek Outside Cimmaron Tipi and were immediately out cold. 

 The weather over the next 3 days was unusually hot and dry for the third week of October – 60 to 70 degrees during the day with no snow even at timberline which was at 12,000′.  The elk were also very high as a result.  Day 1 was a hiking day. Day 2 was a scouting day. Day 3 was actually the first day of 2nd season. We spent Days 2 & 3  hiking back up to 10,000 feet & beyond and were not seeing much fresh sign, covering approximately 10 miles without any elk sightings. We did smell a bull on a high saddle in an incredibly thick, tangled spruce forest. It was warm and six hours from the truck and we decided not to hunt him. Our reward for all that effort was incredible scenery, a small shed antler and a really nice deadhead from a representative 5×5 bull that either of us would be thrilled to harvest.  That deadhead eventually came all the way back to New York and serves as a great reminder of this incredible hunt. 

Lesson #2 – Try to camp within reasonable elevation proximity to your hunting area. Climbing 1500′ in the pre-dawn darkness through those steep canyons was brutal and potentially unsafe. It takes longer to travel a mile in this country than we anticipated. 

As evening fell on Day 3, we ran into an outfitter pulling out his horse camp that was situated several miles up the valley from us.  First, he was very surprised we were that far back in the basin. Second, they had spent 10 days in this area and had not seen very many elk.  So we reluctantly re-thought our plans, discussed options and decided to make a big strategic move out of this camp and on to higher country. The decision to relocate to an entirely different public land area wasn’t without ‘risk’ but we knew it was now or never. The next day (Day 4) we hiked out of the valley with heavy packs. The five mile trip back up out of that basin took over six hours.  We were trashed when we got to the truck.

Lesson #3 – If you’re not seeing elk or fresh elk sign, make the most calculated, rationale adjustments possible. That means making adjustments that fit the conditions on the ground, the time of rut, weather and the feedback you might get from other hunters. It might be an elevation adjustment or an adjustment to a different basin. Keep moving until you find elk or fresh sign. 

 While it burned up a day of hunting, our bold move to a brand new area nearly paid off. We were immediately into fresh elk sign the very next morning (Day 5) at 11,000 feet and our hopes were soaring. The elk were using a thick spruce ridge just below timber line as a bedding area and feeding out into several secluded meadows before dark. We found sign all throughout that particular area, hunted through the timber with the wind in our favor and glassed the late afternoon away in a remote meadow with two small ponds and cathedral views of incredible saw-tooth peaks. By 6 pm, it was time to slowly work back through the timber and ‘still hunt’ our way to the truck. Just before dusk, as we exited the dark timber and looked out into a shadowy side corner of a large meadow, we found them – a nice bull and five or six cows feeding just outside their sanctuary in a small opening less than 250 yards away.

It was one of those situations where they saw us just as we saw them. With the bull directly facing us and cows all around him, our rifles were shouldered in no time and yet we never had a clean or ethical shot. In a matter of seconds, they ghosted into the timber and disappeared.  We were there an hour before daylight the next morning (Day 6) –  our last hunting day of the trip. That’s how it goes with DIY public land hunting. The sign told us we were close, but the clock told us we ran out of time. Somehow or other, we travelled across the country, picked a spot we’d never been before, decided to make adjustments to another place we’d never been, and it almost worked out. It was our very first DIY elk adventure and we considered it a huge success. The serenity, challenge and rugged beauty of the American West left us hungry for more. We both agreed that this adventure is not finished.

  What did we learn? A ton, and we want to share more of our experiences with you. Part 2 of this blog to follow soon will cover our recommendations and insight for anyone planning a western DIY public land elk trip, in hopes that it might shorten your learning curve. Stay tuned….

Jeffrey Jones is a 20+ year US Army veteran from Huntsville, AL – where he is currently the Chair of the Southeast Chapter BHA. Todd Waldron is a Hunt to Eat Ambassador from New York’s Adirondack Mountains and serves as the Vice Chair of NY BHA.