Colorado hunting trip results
09-18-2011, 10:22 PM
#1
Banned
Thread Starter
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: Boncarbo,Colorado
Posts: 9,186
Colorado hunting trim results
For starters heres the Thumbhole Optima's group from today. First shot impacted to the left and so i adjusted and fired 2 more shots which you can see are touching, let the rifle cool down again and make one more slight adjustment to the scope and bingo, right in the bulls eye where i want it for now.
Okay so we left around noon on Sept 9th to get up a day early for camp set up and such. Went to our normal camping area but there were some bow hunters camped there and with a little looking around i found a perfect camping spot between a V in some rolling hills with nice tall ponderosa pines surrounding us.
We just got the tent the day earlier and you know how new projects can be! It actually wasn't bad to set up and took about an hour due to the instruction manual incorrectly labeling the pole colors but once it was set up it was like a mansion LOL. It measured 19L X 12W and came with an LED light set up that ran off four D cell batteries. You could have actually hooked up a 6 volt battery along with a solar panel to keep it charged up. We never did though due to being drained at the end of the day. Bed time normally was before 9pm.
Fast forwarding to Sept 10th at 5am i got dressed, had breakfast and coffee, loaded the CVA Wolf onto the ATV while the ATV warmed up " Artic Cats dont run for chit in cold weather!" Packed my bag with some trailmix as well as 4 bottles of water and strapped that onto the ATV rack and my brother and i headed up Pole Creek where we normally run into small herds of deer.
Well, along the way we don't see anything and so we park at the usual spot and walk down the trail into a valley where an ol mountain man cabin barely stands from long ago. Walking slowly and quietly, looking hard into the aspens we didn't see or kick up anything.
As we rounded a corner, on our right side opens up a big grass field which normally doesn't house anything other than a small clump of aspen.
Well that changed on opening day!
Standing next to that little grove of trees was a small bull elk feeding with his head buried in the grass. I did a little whistle and his head shot up and was looking towards us. After playing around with him for a while " we got a video of him as well" we herd all this crashing and breaking of limbs. Apparently there was an entire herd of elk in the thick aspen/pine grove bordering that field!
One heck of a sight to see on the first day.
And so around noon we head back to camp for a rest as well as to get some lunch. I decided after i ate to go and head down the main road on the ATV and about 1/2 mile from camp i jumped a doe that was bedded down under some cedar trees. I never seem to have the right gender tag.
So day 1 i spotted one bull elk and 1 doe. Not bad, could have been worse. And boy did it!
Day 2 went by uneventful other than my bro in law coming up and we took him around showing him the area and went exploring with the new GPS/Map software " that map software kicked butt!". We found a ton of places to explore, but sadly, after miles and miles of exploring, the only thing we kicked up was a coyote.
Day 3 went by the same way only my brother in law spotted a 2x2 buck bedded 35 yards from where we parked the truck! By the time i got my primer in he had gone off into the thick stuff and while stalking i herd his hooves thump off.
Now my brother on the other hand had a small games license and popped a Dusky grouse on pole creek trail later that day!
On day 4 we tried a new trail "409" and no deer or elk, no turkey, But grouse Galore!!
After that we headed back to camp after doing some hiking and talking to some other hunters in the area that were down on their luck. They hadn't seen any deer since they been there, another hunter and his son saw a couple bucks but passed on them due to their size " crazy i know LOL".
Now after we got all those grouse. Things just went DEAD. Cold weather and evening rain storms " 3 to 4 hours long!" moved in on us for 5 days which limited our hunting. Some evenings we'd finish dinner and go to sleep listening to rain and wake up to the rain starting to fade off. It was a hard cold hunt this year.
Days and days went by, hunters were crawling all over the area looking for deer that were no where in sight.
I forget what day it was but we got our first snow way up in the Sangre De Cristo mountains.
As i said, after day 5 it was DEAD. Zero activity, even the grouse disappeared and we were only able to shoot 5 of them.
So no Buck kill in colorado. I will not be hunting unit 84 again until DOW does something to increase the deer herd. Many hunters i talked with were disgusted with the conditions the deer "herds" were in. You never saw a herd, just one deer by itself and if you were lucky, you'd find another single deer 20 miles up the trail. Very very poor for deer this year. I even stopped at a store to buy some stuff and the locals said that the bow hunters weren't seeing or getting anything at all.
So now that i got skunked again out a deer, i'll get back to the grouse!
Small chicken sized bird that tastes like a mix of duck and turkey!
A single breast!
Me roasting my grouse breast over the open flames of a camp fire. The smoke and heat made for a great tasting grouse breast.
It wasn't a complete loss. We had fun exploring and hiking, along with grouse hunting, the ATV rides are always fun. The nights in the tent were freezing to say the least LOL and the form pads that we used for bedding were harder than rocks, but still softer than the heat robbing bare floor. My dog even had his own sleeping bag and wouldn't get up and moving until i uncovered him and put him either in the truck or on a chain outside the tent. He missed his bed at home and has been sleeping there since we got back other than a potty break a couple hours ago.
And that is exactly where im headin! I havent seen a real bed in 9 1/2 days and i am looking forward to it.
Hope you all enjoyed! Hopefully i can improve in new mexico on saturday and get something in a couple days. Im trying to hold out for a good sizes buck.
Okay so we left around noon on Sept 9th to get up a day early for camp set up and such. Went to our normal camping area but there were some bow hunters camped there and with a little looking around i found a perfect camping spot between a V in some rolling hills with nice tall ponderosa pines surrounding us.
We just got the tent the day earlier and you know how new projects can be! It actually wasn't bad to set up and took about an hour due to the instruction manual incorrectly labeling the pole colors but once it was set up it was like a mansion LOL. It measured 19L X 12W and came with an LED light set up that ran off four D cell batteries. You could have actually hooked up a 6 volt battery along with a solar panel to keep it charged up. We never did though due to being drained at the end of the day. Bed time normally was before 9pm.
Fast forwarding to Sept 10th at 5am i got dressed, had breakfast and coffee, loaded the CVA Wolf onto the ATV while the ATV warmed up " Artic Cats dont run for chit in cold weather!" Packed my bag with some trailmix as well as 4 bottles of water and strapped that onto the ATV rack and my brother and i headed up Pole Creek where we normally run into small herds of deer.
Well, along the way we don't see anything and so we park at the usual spot and walk down the trail into a valley where an ol mountain man cabin barely stands from long ago. Walking slowly and quietly, looking hard into the aspens we didn't see or kick up anything.
As we rounded a corner, on our right side opens up a big grass field which normally doesn't house anything other than a small clump of aspen.
Well that changed on opening day!
Standing next to that little grove of trees was a small bull elk feeding with his head buried in the grass. I did a little whistle and his head shot up and was looking towards us. After playing around with him for a while " we got a video of him as well" we herd all this crashing and breaking of limbs. Apparently there was an entire herd of elk in the thick aspen/pine grove bordering that field!
One heck of a sight to see on the first day.
And so around noon we head back to camp for a rest as well as to get some lunch. I decided after i ate to go and head down the main road on the ATV and about 1/2 mile from camp i jumped a doe that was bedded down under some cedar trees. I never seem to have the right gender tag.
So day 1 i spotted one bull elk and 1 doe. Not bad, could have been worse. And boy did it!
Day 2 went by uneventful other than my bro in law coming up and we took him around showing him the area and went exploring with the new GPS/Map software " that map software kicked butt!". We found a ton of places to explore, but sadly, after miles and miles of exploring, the only thing we kicked up was a coyote.
Day 3 went by the same way only my brother in law spotted a 2x2 buck bedded 35 yards from where we parked the truck! By the time i got my primer in he had gone off into the thick stuff and while stalking i herd his hooves thump off.
Now my brother on the other hand had a small games license and popped a Dusky grouse on pole creek trail later that day!
On day 4 we tried a new trail "409" and no deer or elk, no turkey, But grouse Galore!!
After that we headed back to camp after doing some hiking and talking to some other hunters in the area that were down on their luck. They hadn't seen any deer since they been there, another hunter and his son saw a couple bucks but passed on them due to their size " crazy i know LOL".
Now after we got all those grouse. Things just went DEAD. Cold weather and evening rain storms " 3 to 4 hours long!" moved in on us for 5 days which limited our hunting. Some evenings we'd finish dinner and go to sleep listening to rain and wake up to the rain starting to fade off. It was a hard cold hunt this year.
Days and days went by, hunters were crawling all over the area looking for deer that were no where in sight.
I forget what day it was but we got our first snow way up in the Sangre De Cristo mountains.
As i said, after day 5 it was DEAD. Zero activity, even the grouse disappeared and we were only able to shoot 5 of them.
So no Buck kill in colorado. I will not be hunting unit 84 again until DOW does something to increase the deer herd. Many hunters i talked with were disgusted with the conditions the deer "herds" were in. You never saw a herd, just one deer by itself and if you were lucky, you'd find another single deer 20 miles up the trail. Very very poor for deer this year. I even stopped at a store to buy some stuff and the locals said that the bow hunters weren't seeing or getting anything at all.
So now that i got skunked again out a deer, i'll get back to the grouse!
Small chicken sized bird that tastes like a mix of duck and turkey!
A single breast!
Me roasting my grouse breast over the open flames of a camp fire. The smoke and heat made for a great tasting grouse breast.
It wasn't a complete loss. We had fun exploring and hiking, along with grouse hunting, the ATV rides are always fun. The nights in the tent were freezing to say the least LOL and the form pads that we used for bedding were harder than rocks, but still softer than the heat robbing bare floor. My dog even had his own sleeping bag and wouldn't get up and moving until i uncovered him and put him either in the truck or on a chain outside the tent. He missed his bed at home and has been sleeping there since we got back other than a potty break a couple hours ago.
And that is exactly where im headin! I havent seen a real bed in 9 1/2 days and i am looking forward to it.
Hope you all enjoyed! Hopefully i can improve in new mexico on saturday and get something in a couple days. Im trying to hold out for a good sizes buck.
Last edited by MountainDevil54; 09-19-2011 at 06:35 AM.
09-19-2011, 03:11 AM
#2
Typical Buck
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: Indianapolis, IN
Posts: 550
you trying to tease us with that cooked bird??? and i thought you were hunting elk?? you were in the wrong place, if you was hunting trim!!! That or you boys out west do it a little different than we do....Or was this a typo.....Colorado hunting trim results
Last edited by EndeavorShooter; 09-19-2011 at 03:17 AM.
09-19-2011, 03:24 AM
#3
Typical Buck
Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: MD/PA Line
Posts: 598
09-19-2011, 06:25 AM
#4
Banned
Thread Starter
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: Boncarbo,Colorado
Posts: 9,186
bite me! I wasnt running on much sleep yesterday LOL.
No this year the deer population was horrible. We tried everything right at 8,000 feet, all the way up to 10.5k and nothin. One hunter said the other deer he saw was down by the high way on private land LOL.
May just start heading back up north where we can shoot Does instead of bucks. I'll use new mexico as my antler candy state LOL.
No this year the deer population was horrible. We tried everything right at 8,000 feet, all the way up to 10.5k and nothin. One hunter said the other deer he saw was down by the high way on private land LOL.
May just start heading back up north where we can shoot Does instead of bucks. I'll use new mexico as my antler candy state LOL.
09-19-2011, 07:02 AM
#5
Boone & Crockett
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: River Ridge, LA (Suburb of New Orleans)
Posts: 10,918
I'll bet you a dollar against three cents that with the number of hunters you indicate were in that area, and with everyone running around on ATVs, every deer for miles around instantly became nocturnal and laid low all day.
Mighty pretty country.
Mighty pretty country.
09-19-2011, 07:57 AM
#9
Dominant Buck
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Wisconsin
Posts: 21,193
Beautiful country. Its a shame you didn't get a deer but then its called hunting and not shooting. So sometimes you win and get a deer and some the deer win and get you. I wish you better luck on future hunting trips. It looked like a nice camp to be in. Real comfortable looking.
09-19-2011, 09:24 AM
#10
Nontypical Buck
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Minnesota
Posts: 2,037
Don't run that coleman lamp inside your tent too much there Jon you aint got too minnie brains cells to waste.
Sounds like a good time overall, some birds, some quality time with your buddies. You know I am past the point of really caring too much if I get a deer or not. It's just great for the body and mind to be out there.
Sounds like a good time overall, some birds, some quality time with your buddies. You know I am past the point of really caring too much if I get a deer or not. It's just great for the body and mind to be out there.