MNHunter68

I am heading back to colorado elk hunting this year for 3rd season rifle. It's been 15yrs since the last time I hunted in colorado. Now my son is 16yrs old and I want to take him on an elk hunt with me and my brother. We are looking into GMU 70. We tossed around the thought of other GMU areas like 12,13, 23,and 24. But are leaning more towards GMU 70 based on the 3rd season harvest numbers for the last few yrs. - Would like some opinions if we are looking at the right area for a good 3rd season hunt. We will be spending a pretty penny on 3 out of state tags, so we are are trying to dial in our best area to hunt to try and tilt the odds to put an elk in the freezer.

Chuck

cantgetdrawn

I hunted 70 a few days last year for 2nd rifle and will hunt the unit again for either the 2nd rifle hunt or archery. I may be wrong but I think a lot of the success that the 3rd season has had is due to the snowfall driving the elk down into the wintering ranges. So IMHO where you should hunt during the 3rd rifle season will depend on the amount of snow there is beforehand. I would check out he DOW page, they have online maps where you can see their historic winter concentration areas as well as summer.

http://ndismaps.nrel.colostate.edu/h...d=gmu&value=70

From that you can have different scenarios where you should hunt depending on the amount of snow that has fallen. Let me know if I can be of more help.