ATrueHoyt

No sidearm needed. I have never seen a lion or bear. It would be hard to get more than a mile or two from any road where you are going to be. Well by road I mean it could be just a two track thru the brush. I will be over that way on the 19th for ML cow. Looks like snow here tonight, above 7k feet. In the 60' s in Denver this weekend.

Sigma7

Snow huh - winter comes early where you are. I checked weather.com and NOAA yesterday and they both indicated lots of rain and possible floding for the Rifle/Meeker area. I guess that won' t move the elk down yet....and they likely won' t move much unless you get a couple of feet of snow. Or am I mistaken on that one? I guess that the tags we have will let us hunt in unit 21, 22, 30 and a couple more - so that opens up a WHOLE lot of land if the elk are moving out or we are not finding any good sign. I just hope for cool but nice weather - no hard rain or snow, I mean. Unfortunately, there are no cow tags left until the second season...I was considering getting one of those too, maybe next year.

I assume that you mean Sept 19th for the antlerless muzzleloader season. Let me know how you find conditions. I have some friends over in the northeast for archery now...in the Rahwah. Needless to say I am excited to hear from them. One of them used to guide the area so he will likely take good care of them.

The antlerpoint restrictions for bulls are in effect state wide right?

ATrueHoyt

The tops of the mountains are white this morning. It is suppose to be cold and wet this weekend. Snow levels could drop as low as 6000 feet. The elk will be in your area even if there is 2 feet of snow, don' t worry about it. area 22 has some great hunting as well.

Yes, Sept. 19 for the ML for me. I am going somewhere closer to me for the first weekend then over there to help my dad for the second weekend.

There are antler point restrictions in most open areas. Your areas are included! Most draw areas do not have the restrictions, but why would you care. If you draw you don' t want to take small ones anyway. IMO.

Sigma7

Good luck with the ML hunt - your blood pressure must be rising already. We are putting in for the leftover draw for the first rifle season - cow tags are gone but bull tags are left.

My question about the point restrictions just refers to the fact that if it is a less than herd bull we would have to get in close enough to count the points and make sure they have brow tines. I would never want to shoot a spike or small rag bull but since I have never shot an elk at all it may be enticing to shoot at something less than 300 class.

Are there restrictions on cutting firewood on BLM land that you may be aware of? We are bringing a small load of oak for nights - last year all we could get was pine and we were getting up three or four times a night to reload the fire in the tent.

ATrueHoyt

You can cut firewood where you will be, just don' t cut cords of it. You will have no problem counting the points on an elk. If you do.... its too small. Leaving in about 10 minutes for ML. Yeeeee haw!!!!

Sigma7

go get em' - shoot me a message when you return with the results, good, bad, or otherwise...of course any hutning is better than working

ATrueHoyt

Unfortunately we didn' t make it.... the transmission in my truck went out on us and we had to spend the weekend getting that fixed. I am going to area 21/22 to try again this weekend.

Sigma7

Sorry to hear that - That is the kind of equpment failure you can do without. Try again this week. Our trip is now in the hands of the DOW. We sent in the leftover aplications Federal Express and hopefully they step on it and send them back ASAP - we even gave them a new Fed Ex envelope and paid for the return postage. I would be afraid to try to drive out there without a license in hand for a limited season.

What' s the weather been like - it looks like we are going to get the remnants of your snow here in a day or so.

ATrueHoyt

I will be giving it a good try this weekend, leaving tomorrow after work. I hope you get your license. Looks like the whether is going to be about normal for fall, very nice! For a week or so anyway. But, the whether has been know to change in a few minutes around here.

Sigma7

Track ' em down and get a nice one. Let me know how it goes. I think we are all somewhat worried about getting the licenses on time. But we did talk with a real person in DOW and she suggested sending the extra fed ex envelope. If it does not work, they indicated that we should come out and tell them that we have lost the licenses or did not get them in time and pay an additional $25 and we will be issued a new one. I guess that is better than nothing. But it is a really long haul if we don' t have a tag.