LCH 2019 Colorado Deer Hunt
Sept 23, 2019 13:07:11 GMT -5
Woody Williams, ukwil, and 13 more like this
Post by lawrencecountyhunter on Sept 23, 2019 13:07:11 GMT -5
I got back home a couple of days ago from hunting Colorado and Kansas for deer. I had a great time in each state, but will probably be returning to Kansas in December, so I'll wait to post about that experience until my season is a total wrap there.
I snagged this Colorado tag off of the license leftover list. Colorado posts tags first-come, first-served on their website if a person returns the tag they obtained during the draw. Sometimes, really great tags that would normally have taken 10 years or more to draw are made available on that list, no points needed. My particular tag was a muzzleloader buck tag that would have otherwise taken 2 points to acquire, but I was able to pick up last-minute and keep my single deer point.
From my research, I had learned that most bucks are supposedly up in the high country, at or above tree line in the late summer. They usually stay there until either inclement weather or the rut drives them down into the lower elevations. I found a trail system that was closed to motorized vehicles and horses, the trailhead was at 9k feet, and led up into the alpine at above 12k feet. Since this area is an "Over-The-Counter" area for archery elk, and there was also a muzzleloader elk and archery deer season going in addition to my muzzleloader deer season, I anticipated there being a lot of hunters in the mountains. I figured an area that required a 2-3k foot climb and 4+ mile hike might weed out a bit of the competition. Before I left home I purchased a $100 bear tag for the area, just in case.
Car all set up for solo travel:
I arrived at midday on Friday, with season set to open Saturday. On my drive in I saw two young bighorn rams near Gunnison, and had somewhat close-calls on the highway at night with a calf elk and a pretty good mule deer buck. Once afoot, it took me several hours to make entry to my pre-planned hunt area, and other than a few backpackers, saw no other people. No outfitters, no orange hats, no garbage laying around. Just pristine wilderness. On the climb up, I stopped for a breather, and pulled out my binoculars to do some glassing. Pretty quickly, I spotted a blondish-cinnamon black bear about 1/4 mile away. Only problem was, I would have had to drop down 1k feet, cross the highway, and climb another 1k feet to get to him, and also season didn't open until the next day. So I forgot about him and continued my hike in.
About 1k feet up, looking down at my car below:
About 3-4 miles in, I came to the more open high elevation stuff I had scouted online. Google has a way of making certain sheer cliffs look like gradual slopes, and some of the country I thought would make good deer habitat was vertical rock. However, there was enough suitable ground in the area that I was still optimistic about my chances. The only sign I'd seen thus far was some very old deer and elk scat, but with the amount of country I wasn't overly concerned at that point.
First hunt area:
Backcountry camp:
I glassed all of that evening, with no animals spotted larger than a raven. The next morning, all I glassed up were 3 bighorn sheep on an opposing face, at the same elevation I was at (around 11.5k feet). With the lack of fresh sign and lack of sightings, I decided I needed to go lower. I packed up camp and headed back down to the car, a much easier hike than on the way up.
Some of the scenery between my first camp and the trailhead:
That evening I hunted a State Wildlife Area a little ways north of my original location, but at around 8k feet elevation. This looked like prime deer country, dominated by thick oak brush. Upon inspection though, most of the oaks were not bearing mast, and the acorns that were there were stunted and about the size of a small pea. Several hours of glassing yielded only a single cow elk. There were some deer tracks right on the road where I was glassing from, but I had high temperatures along with a bright moon working against me. With apparently very little daytime movement taking place, I needed to be out still-hunting to try and kick one up, and that would be very difficult in the oak brush thickets of the SWA I was at. At dark, I drove back up into the Uncompahgre National Forest about 20 miles east of my first foray.
SWA:
The next day, day 3 of the trip but day 2 of legal shooting, I hiked into the edge of the Uncompahgre Wilderness at about 10 - 10.5k feet elevation. I found a very small amount of fresh buck sign, but the area was overwhelmingly dominated with elk tracks, scat, and wallows. I heard quite a few bugles from different locations, but I couldn't always differentiate what was an elk and what was a hunter on a bugle tube.
After about a half-day of this, I decided to head back down lower. This time I descended to an area interspersed with large aspen stands and small, open parks. There were lots of roadside camps in this area, which I took to be a two-sided coin; higher pressure isn't usually a good thing, but maybe they were here for a reason. I'd rather bump into another hunter but still be in the game for a buck, than have an entire forest to myself that is devoid of game.
I bumped around in this area for that evening and the next morning (day 3 of season), with only a couple of doe-fawn pairs and lots of hunters to be found. I did hear some shooting. There was decent deer sign, just no actual sightings. Also lots more elk sign to be found, and I did pass a hunting party on my way out that day with a very fine bull in their truck.
That afternoon, I did some driving to try and find something a bit different. I headed to a patch of BLM that just had a couple of public access points, but was bordered for a couple of miles by private irrigated fields and million-dollar homes. The BLM was at about 7k feet elevation, and was vegetated with sagebrush and small pinion-juniper trees. I parked and started hiking in, and immediately found a plethora of both deer and elk sign, from old and crumbling pellets to soft and shiny. Most of the elk sign was old, so I think it's probably winter ground for elk and home year round to deer. At about 1/4 mile in, I looked over to see a doe staring at me from about 50 yards away. I couldn't see any more deer with her, so I continued. At about 1/2 mile from the car, I saw another deer standing broadside to me watching, but this one was sporting a decent rack. I quickly confirmed the target with my binoculars, dropped to one knee, and shot it at about 60 yards. The shot was a bit high, so I reloaded the muzzleloader, approached and delivered the necessary finishing shot.
As he died:
Me with the deer, not real happy with the initial shot, but very happy with the end result:
I had to work a bit harder to find game on this hunt than I usually do. I think the key to success was being mobile and eliminating lesser areas until I found the area that deer were in and other hunters were not. Low standards for trophy score and a bit of luck certainly help as well.
I feel extremely fortunate to have been able to take this trip, as well as every hunt that I'm blessed enough to experience. I do not have a lot of money to spend doing this, but I am fortunate to have a job with paid vacation, and a patient wife who I know will take care of the kids and all the household requirements while I am away.
I snagged this Colorado tag off of the license leftover list. Colorado posts tags first-come, first-served on their website if a person returns the tag they obtained during the draw. Sometimes, really great tags that would normally have taken 10 years or more to draw are made available on that list, no points needed. My particular tag was a muzzleloader buck tag that would have otherwise taken 2 points to acquire, but I was able to pick up last-minute and keep my single deer point.
From my research, I had learned that most bucks are supposedly up in the high country, at or above tree line in the late summer. They usually stay there until either inclement weather or the rut drives them down into the lower elevations. I found a trail system that was closed to motorized vehicles and horses, the trailhead was at 9k feet, and led up into the alpine at above 12k feet. Since this area is an "Over-The-Counter" area for archery elk, and there was also a muzzleloader elk and archery deer season going in addition to my muzzleloader deer season, I anticipated there being a lot of hunters in the mountains. I figured an area that required a 2-3k foot climb and 4+ mile hike might weed out a bit of the competition. Before I left home I purchased a $100 bear tag for the area, just in case.
Car all set up for solo travel:
I arrived at midday on Friday, with season set to open Saturday. On my drive in I saw two young bighorn rams near Gunnison, and had somewhat close-calls on the highway at night with a calf elk and a pretty good mule deer buck. Once afoot, it took me several hours to make entry to my pre-planned hunt area, and other than a few backpackers, saw no other people. No outfitters, no orange hats, no garbage laying around. Just pristine wilderness. On the climb up, I stopped for a breather, and pulled out my binoculars to do some glassing. Pretty quickly, I spotted a blondish-cinnamon black bear about 1/4 mile away. Only problem was, I would have had to drop down 1k feet, cross the highway, and climb another 1k feet to get to him, and also season didn't open until the next day. So I forgot about him and continued my hike in.
About 1k feet up, looking down at my car below:
About 3-4 miles in, I came to the more open high elevation stuff I had scouted online. Google has a way of making certain sheer cliffs look like gradual slopes, and some of the country I thought would make good deer habitat was vertical rock. However, there was enough suitable ground in the area that I was still optimistic about my chances. The only sign I'd seen thus far was some very old deer and elk scat, but with the amount of country I wasn't overly concerned at that point.
First hunt area:
Backcountry camp:
I glassed all of that evening, with no animals spotted larger than a raven. The next morning, all I glassed up were 3 bighorn sheep on an opposing face, at the same elevation I was at (around 11.5k feet). With the lack of fresh sign and lack of sightings, I decided I needed to go lower. I packed up camp and headed back down to the car, a much easier hike than on the way up.
Some of the scenery between my first camp and the trailhead:
That evening I hunted a State Wildlife Area a little ways north of my original location, but at around 8k feet elevation. This looked like prime deer country, dominated by thick oak brush. Upon inspection though, most of the oaks were not bearing mast, and the acorns that were there were stunted and about the size of a small pea. Several hours of glassing yielded only a single cow elk. There were some deer tracks right on the road where I was glassing from, but I had high temperatures along with a bright moon working against me. With apparently very little daytime movement taking place, I needed to be out still-hunting to try and kick one up, and that would be very difficult in the oak brush thickets of the SWA I was at. At dark, I drove back up into the Uncompahgre National Forest about 20 miles east of my first foray.
SWA:
The next day, day 3 of the trip but day 2 of legal shooting, I hiked into the edge of the Uncompahgre Wilderness at about 10 - 10.5k feet elevation. I found a very small amount of fresh buck sign, but the area was overwhelmingly dominated with elk tracks, scat, and wallows. I heard quite a few bugles from different locations, but I couldn't always differentiate what was an elk and what was a hunter on a bugle tube.
After about a half-day of this, I decided to head back down lower. This time I descended to an area interspersed with large aspen stands and small, open parks. There were lots of roadside camps in this area, which I took to be a two-sided coin; higher pressure isn't usually a good thing, but maybe they were here for a reason. I'd rather bump into another hunter but still be in the game for a buck, than have an entire forest to myself that is devoid of game.
I bumped around in this area for that evening and the next morning (day 3 of season), with only a couple of doe-fawn pairs and lots of hunters to be found. I did hear some shooting. There was decent deer sign, just no actual sightings. Also lots more elk sign to be found, and I did pass a hunting party on my way out that day with a very fine bull in their truck.
That afternoon, I did some driving to try and find something a bit different. I headed to a patch of BLM that just had a couple of public access points, but was bordered for a couple of miles by private irrigated fields and million-dollar homes. The BLM was at about 7k feet elevation, and was vegetated with sagebrush and small pinion-juniper trees. I parked and started hiking in, and immediately found a plethora of both deer and elk sign, from old and crumbling pellets to soft and shiny. Most of the elk sign was old, so I think it's probably winter ground for elk and home year round to deer. At about 1/4 mile in, I looked over to see a doe staring at me from about 50 yards away. I couldn't see any more deer with her, so I continued. At about 1/2 mile from the car, I saw another deer standing broadside to me watching, but this one was sporting a decent rack. I quickly confirmed the target with my binoculars, dropped to one knee, and shot it at about 60 yards. The shot was a bit high, so I reloaded the muzzleloader, approached and delivered the necessary finishing shot.
As he died:
Me with the deer, not real happy with the initial shot, but very happy with the end result:
I had to work a bit harder to find game on this hunt than I usually do. I think the key to success was being mobile and eliminating lesser areas until I found the area that deer were in and other hunters were not. Low standards for trophy score and a bit of luck certainly help as well.
I feel extremely fortunate to have been able to take this trip, as well as every hunt that I'm blessed enough to experience. I do not have a lot of money to spend doing this, but I am fortunate to have a job with paid vacation, and a patient wife who I know will take care of the kids and all the household requirements while I am away.
