Pure Adrenaline features: Big Game Hunting • Small Game Hunting • Fishing • ATV / Off Road Adventures • Charity Events

No Bull
Go to page: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

We arrived at the cabin and checked in with the owner’s of the camp.  We got the key to our cabin and unpacked as fast as we could because it was snowing a real wet snow.  It was coming down so hard at one time that we had to wait in the cabin for it to let up.  We had a nice wood stove in the corner of the living room and it had two nice bedrooms.  Once it stopped snowing, you could see all of the mountains with pretty white peaks.  This year, our cabin is on top of the hill, so we can see all of the fields and plains unlike the people with cabins farther down the hill.  After that, we had to drive to Gunnison because my Uncle Brad had to get a new Conservation Certificate Card.  On the way back, we saw two mule deer and my Uncle Dan got out and walked within about 10 feet of them.  Due to the time of the day, we decided to ride out and look for elk before it got dark.  First, we took a drive to check out some of the logging roads and trails that our group had used in other years.  Then we went to check out some areas were the men in our group have taken elk before.  It was snowing so hard that we could not see anything to scout anyway, so we decided to take a short ride and sit in the truck somewhere overlooking a big valley.  When we were sitting in the truck, the snow let up and we could see better.  My Dad looked over toward the valley that we were sitting by.  There he counted 15 cow elk and 1 small bull.  Then a 5 x 5 bull came out and I thought that it was the herd bull, it was so big.  By this time, I was shaking and was afraid I might cry.  I also had a feeling that I had never felt before.  I could not even explain it.  Then, we looked and saw a monster bull come out of the dark timber.  Its spread was bigger than a normal Colorado elk’s spread usually is.  This bull was at least a 6 x 6, if not a bigger we guessed.  I was really shaking now.  I just have to pray that he comes back during the season.  The total number of elk was 19, with 15 cows and four bulls.  We decided to check these areas early in the morning and at dusk.  During the rest of the day, we would go up on top of the mountains and scout, like we had planned.  We came back to the cabin and talked with my Uncles for awhile.  We told them what we had seen but for right now we decided not to tell them where.  Dad said we would tell them eventually, but first we would have a little fun.  Then we got something to eat and kicked it back for the rest of the night.  I called my Mom and told her how excited I was and how lucky I felt.  I had a very hard time getting to sleep that night because I was so excited.  We checked our rifles and got them ready for the season.  We checked the bolts and scopes, oiled the clips and made sure that all of our clips were full.  We checked over our first-aid kits and made sure we had spare knives and batteries for our radios and flashlights. 

 10-10-01

 We got up this morning and ate breakfast and made our plans for scouting.  There was about an inch of snow on the ground and everything was white and cold.  My Dad and I went to the top of a hill to watch for the herd of elk that we had seen the night before.  My Uncle Dan and Uncle Brad went to check for tracks and other signs for elk where they sat last year.  When my Dad and I finally got to our spot we took a little nap because it was still dark out.  As it got light out, the fog set in and then slowly started to rise.  We could see the valley and the creek in the distance.  Even though it was light out, a little more than earlier, there was no sun, it was still overcast and gray.  There was nothing in our valley.  We waited and watched for quite some time and nothing showed.  Dad pointed out that it was strange that we had not seen any other hunters out scouting for the time of year that it was.  We didn’t even see a vehicle.  It was almost time to meet my Uncles to go on top of the mountain.  Before we left to meet my Uncles, my Dad went back the other way to check down one of the creek roads for hunters and campers.  We found nobody back there so we went back to the main road.  We were driving down the road as my Dad was talking to my Uncles.  As we came over the hill near the valley we were watching, my Dad slammed on the brakes, pulled over and turned the key off and said, “Look at that.”   He had spotted a bunch of cow elk milling around drinking and eating by the creek, not a few hundred yards from where we had been sitting.  The elk looked at us for awhile and then went back to their business.  It really was a mystery how they got there since we had been sitting and waiting for them so long.  We only got in the truck and took a little ride to see how many hunters were around and had been gone only a short time.  My Dad said that we were not going to move until he sees where the elk go in and bed down.  Then the elk moved off and back up into the mountains through the trees and fields until they reached the top and went over to the sunny side of the mountain.  Dad used the spotting scope to find the trail that the elk had used to come out to the creek and found out that is was the same herd that we saw the night before.  Only this morning, the bulls were not with them and one cow was missing.  Dad said that by the way the herd bull acted the night before, one of the cows was probably ready to be bred.  He said today, the herd bull was probably laying somewhere with that cow and the smaller bulls were probably nearby hoping to get in on the action.  We went and met up with the Uncles.  They too had seen a bull with some cows this morning.  We were feeling pretty confident because we were having a good scout so far. We headed up the mountain and saw a lot of elk tracks on the way up. After we left the mountain roads and were well up the trail, we saw two great big mule deer bucks standing on a steep slope. We watched them with the binoculars and then continued up the trail.  We hadn’t gone fifty feet when another buck appeared.  Things were really looking up for us.  Farther up the trail, we saw two more mule deer bucks and a doe.  Finally, after about an hour of climbing up the trail, climbing over rocks and between trees we stopped.  From here we could see across a huge valley across from us.  I saw something on the mountain and pointed it out to Dad so that he could check it out with his binoculars.  Sure enough, it was a small cow elk.  Then my Uncles came up and found out that the whole side of the mountain was covered with elk.  There were elk in the popples, laying in the sun and still coming out of the dark timber.  There were too many elk to even think about counting.  I am guessing that there were about 50 elk on the mountain.  This is a great day so far!  We now had found the spot that we wanted to be opening morning.  This was our original plan and it was all we talked about on the way out here.  From there we continued up the trail to the top of the mountain we were on and saw tracks from elk that were fresher than you could imagine.  We started to sneak over the top because it was a nice sunny and beautiful spot for elk to graze and nap.  Sure enough my Uncle Dan saw a cow elk laying in the sun and a few more elk grazing near her.  I got goosebumps down my spine when I heard the herd bull bugle just over the next ridge.  It was the most unbelievable thing you could imagine.  We were actually standing within 20 yards of an entire herd of Elk.  To top it all off no-one had a camera.  We figured we would be doing all of our scouting from a distance and never expected a day like we had been having.  On the way back down the mountain, we saw two big mule deer bucks and one more buck almost by the cabins.  Everybody took a nap that afternoon. 

 After awhile we left to go on our final scout of the day.  We all went our separate ways.  My Dad and I went to check on the herd that we had been watching for two days now.  My two Uncles went to Union Park hoping to see some type of game.  This time, my Dad and I got closer to the creek so that we were closer to the elk when they came out of the woods.  We sat waiting for the sun to go down behind the mountain as we were watching over the creek.  Suddenly, I looked to my right and across the logging road I saw some elk.  At first there were six cows and one legal bull.  Later on two more huge bulls came out with some more cows.  This is when we thought that this herd might be the same one that we had been watching.  The herd must have crossed the road sometime.  At this time, my Dad and I were about 500 yards away.  Then we closer until we were about 200 yards away behind a ridge.  In the middle of the ridge, a ravine ran all the way up to the field.  My Dad told me that I could go up the ravine if I wanted to see the elk a little better.  So I did, I only took the binoculars and the camera.  As I peaked over the ridge, all I saw was there very big, nice and white antlers on the herd bull.  When all of the elk were standing together, I snapped a picture.  The bull was looking straight at me.  When I snapped the picture, and the flash went off, he didn’t even care.  Then when I tried looking through the binoculars, I couldn’t because I was shaking so bad!  Now I am pumped up and ready to go hunt him. 

 When we got back to the cabin, we all exchanged stories, ate dinner, and went to bed.  I can’t wait to go scouting again tomorrow!

 10-11-01

 We didn’t get up too early this morning because we knew where we wanted to go and where our elk were.  We left the cabin just at daylight and headed out to our spots.  Sure enough, there was our herd!  The fog lifted for us to see our herd.  We couldn’t see all of them, but we saw enough elk to know that it was our herd.  Then the fog came back down as if God wanted us to know that they were there, but also for nobody else to see them.  My Dad got out the video camera and tried to get the elk the best that he could through the fog so that we would have some footage on our herd.  The fog sat back down on our herd and the elk became completely invisible.  We could only hear them.  We sat there until 8:00 a.m. and when the fog lifted, the elk were gone. We are not sure exactly where they went in, but we knew that nobody had gone by and seen our herd!  This was one of Dad’s biggest worries.  These Elk we were watching were in an area that has a lot of roads, trails and logging roads.  In other years Dad said this area had a lot of vehicle traffic and he was worried that traffic might screw this all up.  Or if someone happened by and seen our herd they would get too close or try to set up on them and make things tougher for us.

 We went back to the cabin and decided to take it easy for the day. So we went down to the outpost and bought one day fishing licenses. The store owner asked, “Goin’ fishing huh?” My dad, like an old fisherman with a secret Honey-hole answered, “Yeah, since we can’t find any elk, we might as well go fishing.”  The storeowner let out a little chuckle and looked at us with that look that tells you he knows more than you think. The people at this Outpost know my Dad and Uncles from years before and know that if we have been out here for a week and all of a sudden are going fishing, it is just to kill time.  The store owner knows that we know where the elk are!

 I caught about a four or five-pound rainbow trout and my Dad caught two really nice ones.  My Uncle Dan had a lot of fish hit his lure, but no bites.  We had a lot of fun fishing in the hole were we are told the Colorado state record rainbow trout was taken.  After we went fishing, we went back to the cabin and ate lunch.  We sat around until about 3:00p.m. and we left for our final scout for the day.  The only thing that could have gone wrong did.  All of the last minute wannabees, who think that driving four wheelers into every corner of the wilderness, showed up.  It was like someone flipped a switch.  There were trucks and four wheelers driving down every logging road when they would be sitting and waiting for elk to come out to eat.  We thought our hunt was screwed up real bad now, and our elk didn’t even come out that night.  My Uncle Brad and Uncle Dan went up the mountain this day and found out that a group of four wheelers had driven in and set up camp right in the middle of the spot where all of the elk were laying the day before.  These four wheelers think that they were in a good spot, well they were, a good spot to screw up our hunt for the rest of the week.  What once a few days ago was a beautiful environment for elk and mule deer to roam on, was now a racetrack for city slickers to baja around on.  We all went back to the cabin.  All four of us were disgusted in the fact that for the first time in a week, we never saw an elk.  We went to bed early that night hoping and praying that our early morning scout would prove us wrong.  Although we take a four wheeler with us, we use it to pack out game or drive to a spot only.  We do not hunt anywhere near them and can not understand how these people expect to find an animal as smart as an Elk off the seat of a vehicle.  Dad and my Uncle’s wish there were more restrictions on where they can drive and what they can use them for.   

No Bull: Go to page: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4