Congratulations and have a good trip.
Elk like to stay as cool as possible while still remaining in close proximity to ample food, secure cover, and water. The ample food is probably the most important factor. Thus, elk will be high on the mountain until snow drives them down to lower elevations, typically in late October or early November in this area of Colorado. Expect to find elk between 10500 feet and 12000 feet during the first rifle season.
Temperatures in fair weather will reach a high of 50 to 60 degrees during the day and a low of about 20 degrees at night. During foul weather the temperatures will be lower, maybe with a minimum temperature of zero. Some snow is likely during the first rifle season, sometimes heavy snow falls (8 inches to 2 feet). Don’t worry much about getting stuck in a snow storm coming DOWN off the mountain, but it can happen. You should have tire chains for your vehicle and use them if you get into significant snow. Put them on before you get stuck, but you can still put them on when you are stuck, it is just more of a hassle to gain access to install them. Have gloves and a warm hat. Most heat is lost through the head. Have sun glasses and lip balm. Bright sunlight on snow at 11000 feet isn’t going to be very friendly to your eyeballs.
Elk tend to herd together. Expect to see elk in groups of 20, 30, 40. Sometimes you will see a small group of 4 elk together. Elk are not evenly distributed in an area, unlike deer. You may find 30 elk in a 5 acre area and there may be no other elk in the rest of the 10 square mile surrounding you. Until you find elk, you may wish to move quickly until you find sign such as fresh tracks, fresh droppings, or smell elk. Then slow down. If you go too slow before you find sign, you may spend your whole hunt in that portion of the 10 square miles where the elk are not located! Elk like to be close to large feeding areas. Because elk eat a lot and because they tend to herd up, they aren’t going to be satisfies with a tennis court sized grass area for long. Even a football sized area will be grazed off by a herd of 20 elk pretty quickly. They like to bed on ridges where there is a flattened place or a bench. Approach from above the bench and just off the side of the ridge. Saddles between two different drainages are likely spots. The elk are active at morning and night and bed during the day. They are more active just after a period of bad weather when they will likely hole up and desist from grazing.
Realistically assess your hunting plans. Something like 20% of elk hunters in Colorado take an elk and 80% go home empty handed. First, understand that being in elk country during the first rifle season on Southern Colorado is a beautiful experience . If this is all you come away with, that is still well worth the trouble and the trip. This is your first elk hunt, so if nothing else you will learn many, many things from this first hunt that you could not have learned sitting on your butt in Oklahoma reading hunting magazines and books about hunting. Ask everyone you meet about what they can teach you about elk hunting. They aren’t likely to tell you a good spot to hunt elk, but they might, so listen carefully. More likely they can tell you some things such as where to look for elk – like on a ridge on a bench, approaching from above. If you see a cow 15 minutes into opening morning, you may want to shoot that cow rather than holding out for a 7x7 bull. The choice is yours. Think your decision making process out in advance so you won’t regret the decision you ultimately take. If you want to hold out for the 7x7, then you shouldn’t be disappointed if you pass on a cow and never see a 7x7. You aren’t going to see many 7x7 elk on public land unless the hunting unit his HIGHLY exclusive, meaning you may need to accumulate preference points for some 10 years or more. A 6x6 is very good. A 5x5 is more likely. A 4x4 is not anything to turn your nose up at.
Elk are big animals, so have a plan on how you are going to get one out if you kill one. Some packers will hire out to retrieve elk with horses. This may cost about $350. If you are interested in this, be sure to make arrangements in advance – have one or more packers identified in advance. You will want to field dress the elk promptly. Have at least two sharp knives. Knives break sometimes. Also, have a sharpener. Have a good bone saw, such as a Wyoming brand saw. Elk hide and hair are hard on knives and dull them quickly. Plan to skin off the hide on one side, remove the up side backstrap, remove the rear leg, remove the front leg/shoulder, saw off a portion of the skull retaining the antlers if present, then roll over to the other side. Rolling the elk over is often difficult for one person to do. This is one reason you want to remove the antlers before rolling over. You may need to manoeuvre the elk’s position on the ground to make it easier to roll over. Remove the hide on the other side, remove the backstrap on this side, remove the rear leg, remove the front leg/shoulder. Also, remove the tenderloins on the inside of the rib cage along the backbone. Unlike deer, backstrap in elk are considerable sized pieces of meat. Additionally they are the best meat on the elk. Additionally, the Colorado Department of Game and Wildlife is liable to give you a ticket for wanton waste of game meat if you don’t take the tenderloins. As I take off the meat, I like to bury in snow if present to promote cooling the meat. Saw off the lower portions of the legs and the hooves. Remember that much of the meat in the lower end of the legs is pretty much useless – tough and full of tendons. Have game bags for storing the meat in. This can be pillow cases, flimsy thin game bags, or heavy canvas-like game bags. I use the heavy canvas-like game bags, but my hunting partner uses the flimsy thin game bags and they work too. If there is no snow at the kill site, drag or carry the game bags to a shady, snowy area and bury in snow. You may leave the meat here for 3 days without fear of the meat going bad. Remember, the meat is buried in snow, the daytime high only reaches about 55 degrees at the maximum, and nighttime lows drop to 20 degrees.
Be in good physical condition. Emphasize training for endurance rather than training for maximum strength. Walking can be a good exercise, like walking 4 miles per day with ankle weights and with a 25 LBS pack on your back. Running is good too but don’t ignore walking on the mistaken notion that it just doesn’t have any value. It has plenty of value, it just takes longer to walk 4 miles than to run 4 miles. Do strength exercises such as lunges, push-ups, sit-ups, squats, knee lifts, bicep curls, wrist curls, dead lifts. If you don’t have equipment for some of these (dead lifts) skip those. Get your weight down to a desired weight, whatever that is.
Practice with your rifle so you are aware of where it is shooting. This is in the no-brainer region. Have good boots that are broken in. The boots should work on uneven, rocky terrain and work while carrying a heavy load.
Last edited by Alsatian; 06-07-2012 at 09:35 AM.