Flew into Albuquerque, NM on Friday August 28th. After a quick stop at Wally World with the rental truck we headed North the 3 hours into Colorado. So far everything had gone relatively smoothly with the exception on my cheap China made hockey bag having a blow out in the airport. I had to repair it with some 550 cord and packing tape, but all gear made it in one piece. My brother lost a pocket knife when the TSA jokers opened an outside pocket on his bag and did not close it properly. I had an extra gerber I lent him for the trip.
We made our way to the trailhead I had scouted out on the maps. First real setback. The dang Forrest service had the trail gate closed/locked. The gal at the nearby campground said the funding was cut to maintain the road, but it would be open a little later in the season for 4-wheeller use..... Well that does us a lot of good! Now we were faced with the prospect of either 5 more miles of hiking before getting to the real trailhead and heading up the Mountain, or going back to the trail of death by switchbacks! I guess we were meant to suffer!
We immediately loaded our gear and headed up the mountain. Dave and I had about 50-60 pounds of gear.....I should have checked on my older brother Chris though...he ended up carrying probably more than 70-80 pounds! I guess he forgot, or did not learn from the last time. He would remember shortly.
Up and up we headed from 9,000 feet up to 10,000 and then 10,500..... No time to acclimatize for these flat landers. Straight up the mountain. By turn 7 of 27 Chris was really suffering.....had to flop and rest. He went through his gear and buried about 15 pounds of crap by the side of the trail. The only flat spot for camping was another 7 switchbacks up and it was starting to get dark. He would never make it. I scampered ahead with my light pack and tried to dump gear and come back to carry some of his stuff. But when I came back down the mountain Dave was heading up...Said Chris was done...exhausted. He would camp just off the trail tonight and we would come back in the morning to get some of his gear.
Ok, so which one of these hunters is a little overloaded?
The only reason there are smiles there is that was the hike down the mountain.....Chris was no way carrying all that crap up! It is amazing he made it as far as he did. The guy is an animal!
The next morning we got up and repacked.... as soon as Dave and I headed back down toward Chris, he was already on the way up. He did not sleep well as we got rain and he was hunkered under a small tarp. He got up to our halfway camp and buried another 5-8 pounds of gear.
Next we finished hiking up to the plateau, and were ready to make camp and then hunt the evening! The meadows were a little dry and we started to notice a lot of the standing timber was dead. We found out later the pine bark beetle was the culprit.
We were full of anticipation. I still hunted that evening and saw promising sign. A large number of elk had been in the area, or moved through. Found fresh day-old scat and many matted down beds in the meadow....maybe from that rain event on the way up the previous night.
We set up camp and had a nice Mountain house meal for dinner. We all had plans to get after them early. I wanted to set up in the wood line adjacent to all those elk beds I saw.
I got up at 5am and huffed and puffed up the and over the terrain trying to get up high and feeling the thin air in my lungs. The moon was bright and full...crazy bright.
I set up in a natural funnel with a ton of day old elk sign. The funnel was edged by the meadow on the low side and a rock slide up higher. I was feeling deadly.
There was a small depression, wrinkle valley, and I set up in some deadfall. elk would not see me unless they climb over the rise and that would put them in shooting range.
I let things quiet down, and gave a series of soft cow calls......the air was heavy with anticipation....and I waited. and waited.... finally I decided to ratchet up the calling a bit and my cow calling became more excited...then I threw in some raking brush and stomping feet....that aught to get some attention.....waiting again...
Beautiful morning.
I headed back at lunch and saw this large bear track on the trail.....also bumped a mule deer in velvet. Wonder how the other guys did?
I got back to camp and crossed notes with Chris and Dave. Their reports were also pretty dismal. They had not even come across and fresh sign. The consensus was to hunt the evening and the following morning and if nothing proved promising, pick up camp and drop into the next meadow valley about 3 miles further and deeper.
The evening proved uneventful and Dave and I planned to team up and do a little caller/shooter set up in the top meadow that had yet to be investigated. There were heard some repeated and suspicious bugling up there and we wanted to see if this was another hunter or a really rambunctious bull with laryngitis.
We set out early after morning coffee and “business”…..the moon still bright and we were beginning to curse it. Wind in our faces we skirted the tree line heading up the meadow. We made our way around a bend and spotted a makeshift camp on the edge of the meadow. The water filter and bottle hung by a branch though no tent or sleeping bag could be found. We were not alone.
Back on course, we headed up the meadow again. Suddenly we heard a challenge bugle a few hundred yards up ahead. Our pulses quickened and we formulated a plan to close the distance as we had terrain and the wind in our favor.
As we closed the distance bugling continued. When we were within 80 yards or so of where the sounds came from, something happened…..!
We heard the worst bugle with chuckles we had ever heard. I mean it sounded like a guy playing his 4th graders recorder for music class. Toot toot tooooot…definitely the other hunter. We approached hoping he would show himself so we could convince him to tone it down and shut the heck up, but he was too shy to come talk. WTF?! The only other guys up here and he has to act like that and hide/run away. After we left the area to try to find more real elk we heard him continue bugling again. REALLY.
We started calling him “Bugle Boy”. Later one evening Dave saw him climb atop a huge boulder at the head of a meadow and start tooting again. Dave stepped into the open and tried to get his attention with the universal hand signals for STOP….He finally saw Dave who was trying to approach the guy to talk and he just runs away again. Nice!
We continued on and walked a good distance searching for fresh sign. Nothing promising. It was time to move and go deeper! The full moon, being early, and the unseasonable warm weather, were keeping the elk down low. We knew f another hillside that had elk in the past...time to ruck up and hike again.
The new area looked immediately promising as well approached our new camp. The meadow contained a wallow that is obviously out in the open and used at night. But there was some activity around it.
We camped a mile away from our North-facing hill where we had encountered elk and bedding areas in the past.
Another bonus was that the meadow contained a nice little stream which probably held trout. After camp and a rest we broke away to explore and look for promising areas.
I had bought my brother Chris a Tenkara fly rod for his birthday and it arrived just a few days before we left MD. I gave him a quick lesson on how to set up the line and cast. To our happy surprise he came back to camp with these nice cutthroat trout! No freeze dried meals this night! YEAH!
The morning again had me huffing and puffing up high to above the elk and await the switch over of the thermals. This would allow me to creep downhill with the wind in my favor. I jumped a portion of the small creek on the way up and it was teaming with trout activity. I’ll remember that spot!
In the meantime, I entered the woods and found a spot atop the ridge where a finger jutted out. The area had fresh elk sign and a tree that had been thrashed by a bull in recent times. The first good fresh bull sign. Several trails including the one that had the rub circled a thicker area with 2 huge boulders. I set up in this area and could cover several approaches.
I stayed quiet for some time before starting with some light cow calling. I could picture that bull coming over the ridge at any moment.
Eventually I started to ratchet up the calling again. I decided on some re-gathering sounds as this could bring in a cow or bull…..then interjected some tree thrashing and light
The wind shifted after full sun and I slowly still hunted downhill on the finger.
I was still feeling deadly and the elk sign was fresh and continuous. The finger dumped into a small dell that had lots of green lush vegetation that was nipped off….lots of poop and lots of tracks. Looked like a good area to set up, but I wanted to see how far this little stretch went, so I continued through still hunting.
All at once I felt something and simultaneously heard something behind me to the left. I turned my head back instinctively and saw/heard 2 cow elk which had crested the depression bust me and bolt back the way they came. DANG! If I had waited to gone slower they may have passed right in front of me. I tried to stop them with a nervous grunt and began a re-gathering sequence of calling….but I know they saw me move and they were slightly downwind as well….Gone.
No luck, but I now had renewed optimism for this area and found a good couple spots to set up. After making it to the bottom, I decided to head back up the mountain via the creek bed and check out that trout steam!
I took the telescoping tenkara rig out of my back quiver and put on a small black ant fly I had tied. The first cast in a deep pool brought e this beauty!
Two more smaller ones would follow, enough for lunch for 3 hungry hunters back at camp.
This little guy was at the other extreme, so I let him back to grow.
Back at camp the other guys had promising sign also, and my brother spotted an elk fawn still in spots but the Momma was nestled in the timber and never seen. Things were looking up.
After lunch I decided to hike back about 3 miles where we jumped a group of blue grouse on the way in. I hoped they were still there after that long hot hike. I was not disappointed. As soon as I approached the area I had seen them in previously I spotted a large bird on the ground. It started to nervously cluck as I drew back and fired. I plucked badly and the arrow impacted about 8 inches to the right of the bird but he did not take flight. I immediately cursed under my breath as I withdrew another blunt arrow and as the bird was now trotting from right to left I loosed in coordination with the bird. This shot anchored it on the spot. Another smaller bird exploded from cover and lit in a tree about 20 yards distant. Despite the distance, and the fact if I missed my arrow would careen down the canyon, I also loosed at this bird. The result was a puff of feathers and a squawk as my arrow sailed into oblivion. Just a graze, but almost two birds.
We were starting to get frustrated with the lack of elk activity. The full moon was really limiting daylight movement, there was no bugling, most of the trees were dead, and we were beginning to wonder of the majority of the elk had not moved up from the valley yet as it was early in the season and still warm.
Our afternoon hunt was cut short by an approaching thunderstorm. Temps dropped about 10 degrees almost immediately, the winds picked up, and things got dark. One by one we filtered back to the cover of camp as the clouds thickened and thunder/lightning kept closing in.
It took us the better part of the day to make that trip, but soon we were back at our truck and headed to a small restaurant for dinner. The place was run by a couple of southerners from South Carolina and boy could they cook! Their BBQ was heavenly and we happily ate our fill. Two other groups of hunters were there and they relayed to us some of the same frustrations with lack of elk movement. The warm weather and moon was really putting a wrench into everyone's plans.
Drunk on southern cooking, we stumbled back to a state campground in the valley and racked out for the night. We had one more day to hunt the valley....and we hoped we could get it done down low.
At first light the parking area had about 7 trucks already there. We scoped out a likely looking bench halfway up a north face of the valley and started up. The hill was steep and though we were weary from a week of mountaineering, we made short work of the climb and eased up onto the downwind side of the bench. The aspens were sweet and it looked like quintessential elk habitat.
We set up on either side of the bench and began some light cow calling....it was now or never and we were feeling deadly!The feeling did not last though.....neither did our time in CO. Another uneventful morning brought the hunters back to civilization with renewed anticipation for applying our latest lessons toward next years elk tag.
Deer season awaits back home.
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