Live Hunts - Colorado Archery Elk Hunt - September 7

Live Hunts - Colorado Archery Elk Hunt - September 7 - Day 1

Thursday - September 7 - Day 1
Colorado Archery Elk Hunt

Welcome, everyone, to our 3rd live hunt of 2000. It's very enjoyable to be able to provide an opportunity for you the viewers to hunt with me vicariously. I hope you enjoy it as well.

This is the first day of an archery elk hunt in Colorado. I am hunting the San Juan Mountains near Platoro, Colorado. This is the 3rd consecutive year I have hunted this area. 2 years ago I was fortunate to take a cow elk with my bow. Last year was much tougher and I did not draw my bow on an elk. This is some pretty rough country - great elk habitat. There is a very good elk population, but also a pretty decent population of hunters. The trick is finding the places where no foot has stepped yet during the season. The last 2 seasons I was here the opening week. This year I came 10 days later, hoping to catch the elk more in rut, and also hoping that the aspen trees would be in better color. We (my family and I) are staying at Conejos Cabins on the Conejos River in Platoro. I am able to drive each morning and evening to the hunting area not too far from our cabin. Alright, on to the hunt.

A.M. Hunt
Well, this morning I covered a lot of new ground in an area I have not hunted yet in the past 2 years. I was interested in looking at some new areas this year. I started up a drainage that looked good on the topo map. Set out about a quarter till 6, just light enough to see 20 or so feet in front of me, and to be pretty sure of my step. After about 45 minutes of steady climbing I came to a big alpine meadow/bowl that was the best "looking" elk country I have seen in my 3 years of hunting here. It looked like perfect elk habitat. Big meadows surrounded by timber. Unfortunately, fresh elk sign was scarce. I saw quite a bit of sign, but it all looked to be 7-10 days old. I did not see any fresh tracks, scat, or beds. Lots of sign, but all of it old. I still-hunted slowly through the area for the next hour or so, and saw nary an elk, even at great distances. I also glassed across a deep canyon into an area that I had hunted each of the last 2 years. I was disappointed to not see any elk feeding at timberline over there either. My only thought is that hunters have hit both of these areas very hard before I got there and run the elk out into another area. The only I saw this morning was a few mule deer and a few chipmunks.

This lake I saw this morning was too beautiful not to capture on film.

Here I am glassing a likely looking spot for elk to be feeding. This was at about 7 a.m.
I walked basically a big circle of 3-4 miles from my vehicle and saw no fresh elk sign anywhere. I happened to run across 3 different hunting camps on the way back to my car, and each camp had very few elk sightings, and no shots on the ones they did see. Depending on how the next few days go, I might check out this area again at the end of the hunt.

This view, new to me, is one of the prettiest I have seen in 3 years of hunting here. Unfortunately, I saw no elk while glassing all that great looking alpine country.

Just another beautiful scene I saw while hiking this morning.
Mid-day Hunt
I already have planned where to hunt this evening, but I decided to go check out an area after lunch that last year had a lot of good elk sign. I walked through the whole area after lunch and saw almost no fresh elk sign, and a lot of cattle tracks and some boot prints as well. Although I didn't actually see any elk in this area last year, it had great elk sign. Not this year. This hasn't been a good opening day so far. This evening I'm going to hunt an area that has had good elk sign each of the last 2 years, and I have had quite a few elk sightings there as well.

P.M. Hunt
This evening I went scouting a new place on a tip from a mule deer hunter who had seen elk there a few days before. He told me exactly where to go, that there were a lot of elk tracks. I went where he said, and sure enough, there was some good fresh sign. It appeared that there was an old salt lick there, as the ground was fairly pawed out and there were little traces of white. I wasn't sure which direction the elk might come from, so I decided this evening to just get at a vantage point to see where they came from and try to ambush them tomorrow evening. I got about 200 yards away, set up beside a big aspen tree where I could see the lick, and waited until almost dark. A few minutes before dark 2 cow elk and a calf came out near the lick, but went to grazing instead of going to the lick. They were not really in a stalkable position because of how the wind was, but it's possible I might be able to set up on them good for tomorrow evening. Below is a photo of the meadow they came out in. Check back tomorrow!

Go to Day 2

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