Terrymo,

Hunting 3rd season elk in Colorado the first thing you have to do is pray for snow This will push the elk out of a fair bit of land and make your job easier. When it' s warm, most elk are still up high and you' ll have to put a few more miles on to find them.

The biggest problem that I had when I moved to Colorado and started hunting elk is that I still had the whitetail hunting mind from Wisconsin. There, deer are just about everywhere, and if your patient enough your going to see one eventually no matter what. But elk, either they are on your mountain, or they aren' t. I' ve found that for myself I' m better off taking a few days off of work early and scouting right before the season starts (a day or two) Most of this time is spent driving/hiking around my unit and looking for elk, and talking to the hunters that are just ending there season that week. I' ve always run into some great hunters that are willing to tell you the real story about what is going on. Very helpful!

During my actual hunt I normally hunt meadows in the morning/nights, and hike my butt off during the day looking for sign and elk. I stop alot and glass when I find something that looks like it should hold elk, dark timber in heat, sunny slopes in cold. When I' m hiking/walking there is always a fine line between covering ground and being stealthy. You can' t find elk that aren' t there so walk fast, but if you spook some that are there, you' ll probably never see them again.

Don' t know if any of this was really helpful, but good luck

By the way, I was in Unit 15 the last 3 days snowmobiling (Rabbit Ears Pass) and sure was fun. Saw upwards of 500 elk down towards Yampa eatting the crop lands