With the memories of an awesome September still in the back our minds, we were in the process of planning to head back out to Colorado for a rifle elk hunt. For this hunt my buddy Clay was the subject of the hunt. This would be his first time Elk hunting himself and the stories we had to tell from September had him, as well as Tyson and I, super excited to be out there with a rifle. We were hunting the second season if I remember correctly. This was in late October. Later October is a hard time to leave Missouri, as the whitetail rut is kicking into full swing back home. The high hopes of big bull elk had us forgetting about whitetail for the time being. We were ready.
I remember leaving on a weekday because we had to pick Clay up in Columbia and he had just finished a test before we were able to head out. We were packed full, except for Tyson. Tyson had forget his boots. Grateful that we found out before we were on the mountain, we stopped by a bass pro to get him a pair. We were headed to the same location as our September hunt, so another 15 hour drive was ahead of us. The drives can be some of the best parts about trips. So many conversations and ideas get passed around the truck cab when you have fifteen hours of windshield time. We made it go by fast. A little too fast about 20 minutes from the motel… at about two in the morning, Clay gets caught going a little too fast through the town just outside of where we were headed. A very nice lady was the officer conducting the stop. I’m sure veery caught off guard by the cameras, I just had to record this for memory purposes! Clay did receive a ticket. What a start to the hunt. We were able to make it to our motel for the night. The desk clerk was no where to be found when I walked in, I’m sure she was getting some sleep while waiting on the kids from Missouri to get there. We got to our room, unpacked, and went to bed.
The next morning was beautiful. We found a place to start our hiking and headed in. Snow on the ground, a chilling light breeze, sun shining, it was amazing. The hike in provided no elk sign. This wasn’t going to deter us yet. We get to a glassing spot to only find zero elk. We head back to the truck. We did a ton of driving on this trip. Looking and observing the other hunters to see what their tactics were. Many of them were mule deer hunters. We quickly came to the conclusion that there were no elk up on the mountain at the time. The recent snow, which had now melted, had pushed them lower. We tried to hunt lower, but with little knowledge about this style of hunting, we failed. The next couple days were spent searching and searching to come up with nothing. We decided to head back, the whitetail rut being our main persuasion. On the last evening we spent some time in the hot tub at the motel, this was great to top off the trip.
I’d love to try to hunt rifle season elk again. This time putting in more effort and putting ourselves in better positions and putting in more effort. Until then!
