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Colorado OTC Archery Elk Hunt Recap – Drew Miles
276 Plays4 months ago
This week Drew rides solo on the podcast to recap his Colorado over the counter archery elk hunt. Drew does a day by day break down of the highs and lows from the hunt. He talks how the point creep game got him this year and about this being the last year or OTC archery elk in Colorado. This is a fun recap show to listen to and it has a lot what went wrong and what went right. Lots of info to take away from this one.
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Transcript
Podcast Introduction
00:00:01
Speaker
You are listening to the Tricer Podcast, where we talk all things hunting, gear, and the great outdoors. Before we begin, let's start things out right and put God first. Lord Jesus, I thank you for Tricer, and I ask that you can use this podcast as a way to bring joy to all of our listeners. We lay Tricer and this podcast at your feet. Amen.
Self-Interview Introduction
00:00:22
Speaker
All right, it's gonna be a little bit different podcast. Today I'm interviewing myself.
00:00:28
Speaker
I like to hear myself speak, so she shouldn't be too terrible, I guess.
Colorado Hunting Trip Recap
00:00:32
Speaker
We were trying to do hot recaps of all my hunts this year. And I just got back from Colorado, spent 10 days over there, eight days hunting.
00:00:42
Speaker
hunting So if we'll get into that, not not killing. So there's a good time over the counter tag.
Wyoming Antelope Hunt Excitement
00:00:49
Speaker
I haven't been doing a ton of pods lately. I've just been in like hunting mode. I think I've got like 18 days in the field now since like the end of August with Hawaii.
00:00:58
Speaker
Had the elk hunt, and there's my hunting locally here in San Diego for deer, and then going to the range. I've been in the range like six times this week, in the last eight days, something like that. Just field testing, our new bipod, some of the new tripod heads. Been in some PRS matches. Just field tests, having a lot of time to do pods. I leave for Wyoming in the morning. Again, coolest job in the world. Flying to Wyoming tomorrow to go hunt antelope.
00:01:25
Speaker
I need an easy hunt and that one should be like dove hunting. I think we're going to see like 200 bucks a day and this is going to be like eight points on it. So easy hunt and taking my 11 year old. That'll be a good one. I'll recap that one next, I guess. But, uh, yeah, man, archery elk, Colorado over the counter last year to do it.
Expectations in Colorado
00:01:45
Speaker
They really drove over there and went to Walmart and bought my tag over the counter. I had a license.
00:01:51
Speaker
I was going to, uh, I had high expectations to draw a attack. I had eight points in Colorado, put in for a premium unit. Um, what I would call premium unit, a good hunt. Um, and, uh, I got point crept. So I guess 32 out of the 34 people we put in with eight points, got point craft is a hundred percent draws and go on. And the point creep is real. I'm hoping that with them getting rid of over the counter, it'll solve that. Um, I don't know that it will.
00:02:21
Speaker
Um, cause over the summer kind of it's going away, but it kind of isn't, uh, Colorado is very similar to California to where your second choice doesn't count towards your points. So what you're going to do next year is apply for the tag you want. Um, and then if you don't get that, you'll get your second choice. It could retain your points and you'll get that tag. So I would say put it in for the unit that you want to hunt over the counter normally, but that's your second choice, but a bomber unit for your first one. And then, uh, I'm not sure on the random, they have randoms over there, no California way of randoms.
00:02:51
Speaker
So you could get lucky and draw a tag on the first one, or you just get stuck at your second point. It does kind of make it to where you can't, I mean, I guess you can turn the tag back, but Colorado is kind of like your fallback state, right? Like if you don't draw all in other states, you'll go to Colorado. So it is kind of, could have kind of eliminate that, but hopefully, you'll be able to put in for their first choice and plug points on some of the kind of units that can, there's some of that point creep over there, I don't know.
Hunting Strategies and Experiences
00:03:18
Speaker
We'll see.
00:03:19
Speaker
but um Yeah, man. My first archery elk hunt, I got close. I got real close and I didn't do it. I've kind of at a point now in my hunting career where this is me like bragging where where I'm going to find animals. Like I know, like I've been on like eight elk kills now. Like I know that if I go to a place, I'm going to find elk. There's elk in the area. I'm going to find them. um Same thing with deer. I mean, anything I hunt now, I'm kind of like, I know I'm going to find them. It's a matter of getting them killed and, um,
00:03:51
Speaker
this out was no different. I mean, we were on bulls or elk. I mean, not bulls every day, but we were on elk every single day. Just the rut wasn't happening, man. And when we were there, we went, we were the first, we decided to go over the first like 10 days of the month because I'm going to Wyoming tomorrow, like I said, and ah that's, I'm good. Today's the 22nd. So I'm actually a week and a half later was positive. Just had to do it. Um,
00:04:16
Speaker
So I wanted to go the first like 10 days, be the first guys in there before muzzle loaders come in and ah it just didn't work out. I probably should have just waited. If I could go back again, if I could get all over again, I think I could get it done. If I went back on like the 10th and I'm like the 10th to the 20th, because I think I've been running. Like when we were down there, they were not running. We had a little bit of bugles and stuff. There was some like, you know, rag horns trying to mount
Challenges in Hunting Terrains
00:04:40
Speaker
up, trying to get down on some cows, but All the big bulls were solo, hiding in, it was almost like a late season hunt, trying to find them in like dark timber in the Bama Canyons. And almost like a, like a bottom stock mule deer, like trying to find them and get on them, which I love, right? Like my style of hunting is glassing, right? I glass eight, 10 hours a day. So this is perfect for that. Get elevation, find them, try to get it done. But ah I guess I'm going to try and break it down. I'm doing this new thing. If you're not, if you're watching,
00:05:12
Speaker
like these orange waterproof notebooks. I'm doing a new thing where I'm taking notes every day of my season, trying to keep track. I think I'm gonna get to like 80 days this year in the field, between now and January. Maybe more, maybe less, something around there. So I just wanna keep notes, i kind of remember how everything went and just look back on them. And then for these pods, it's gonna make it really nice to be able to recap with this. So yeah, man, let's let's break it down. First day, got over to Colorado.
00:05:41
Speaker
We were, our plan was to kind of like, we brought no like base camp stuff. We brought canvas cutters for everything. So we'd be really mobile. So if we weren't finding out, we can move to the next spot. And then we brought back back in gear, right? So first day we went in, we had us what we wanted to go to, but I wanted to check another area out first. Total death road, my truck, if you haven't seen my truck, it's a, I'm going to cry when it finally goes out. It's an 07 F-150 that has just been driven to hell and back 15 times. I mean, the bumpers are ripped off. It's just,
00:06:11
Speaker
It looks like ah the car from freakin' Animal House, you know what I mean? It's like a death mobile. It's so much dead stuff in the truck in the bed of that thing on the tailgate. It's a cool truck, so we just beat the sun out of it. and So I drove it down this road, I shouldn't have went down, got in there, slept on some really good, like a really good vantage point, got up and just glassed for like three hours, did not see a single lock down there. It was hot, so that's one thing I should probably do right now, is like this hot was hot, like in the 80s.
00:06:40
Speaker
Most days, especially in this unit, because we have a lower unit here. I'll end up switching units here in a
Adventurous Driving Anecdote
00:06:44
Speaker
minute. They'll talk about that. but um So it was hot. Did not see any elk.
00:06:52
Speaker
Had to drive out of that spot. And we decided like, well, we don't want to go back till we came. We'll just keep going forward, which is a really bad idea. Like it was a bad, bad idea. So we go down this trail and it was like, it might've been a side-by-side trail, probably more of a quad trail. We got my truck down it.
00:07:10
Speaker
ah definitely like had like tires off the ground like total rock crawling gnarly we got footage of it it's pretty good get to the bottom of this thing and then we just kind of like road hunted like kind of check out some more canyons just looking for el lots of sign with the signs all like you can tell it's all like ah migration stuff like it's all like three four months old like nothing fresh like there's just definitely not elk in this area like you want to be seeing a lot of sign to know there's elk there I mean if you're seeing like some old so old poop like don't you know, don't bank on it, you want to find a lot of fresh stuff, then you know, you're, you can find the elk. Dude, so I have it written down here too, we were just driving um down this road, like a regular dirt road, like, you know, gates and everything. And all of a sudden, and we're going like 30. All of a sudden, my truck starts slowing down and stops.
00:08:03
Speaker
We were in like, there was like 18 inches of mud on this road. Like, I don't know what happened. I've never had this happen with a road before, but my truck is buried, like to the axles, married in mud on the middle of this road. And we destroyed, I felt bad because like there's people, I mean, obviously, but no one's going down because we're only tracks on this thing, but we destroyed this road. So my truck's in there. Luckily, I always have a shovel and a jack and all this stuff. So we did the whole nine and I was smart enough now that I've been older to stop. So I stopped like right there. I didn't keep trying to go forward.
00:08:33
Speaker
Are we able to reverse it, reverse it, reverse it out? But I still had another like 100 yards to go and it just got thicker. So like the only solution obviously is to just hit it at like 60. And maybe we got footage of this and I hit that thing at like 60. But the time we got through, it was going like 10. Like it almost got me still. And there's just mud all over the truck. I mean, it was, it was good. yeah Like my camera guy was up like, uh, I don't know.
00:08:58
Speaker
40 yards above me and he got hit with mud. It was it was thick it was ah it was a good uh a good it wasn't even a puddle it was just like a road and I look you look back at the road and it's like 18 inch ruts and I felt pretty bad for those guys if no anyone's going down there in the ranch or anything but we had no option we weren't going back until we came because it was it was we weren't going to make it back up um so we went from there Moved up to the original spot that I had pinned. I did a ton of e-scouting on this thing. I did Mark Libsays. He had a class on this. like We did a bunch of stuff with that. And I know, at this point, I kind of know like where elk are going to be. We're on the border private. And we move up. And it wasn't that far. It was like another 15 miles up the road to this spot. Get in there. Took the canvas cutters up. Shoot the bows. Make sure we're sighted in. Everything's good.
00:09:50
Speaker
um And the next day is opening day. So our plan is for opening day is where I want to get to. I thought we were going to drive back there. You can't, because it was private. And the rencher made it very clear
Switching Hunting Units
00:10:00
Speaker
when he what came up to us and said, do not drive down my driveway. I drove up to his gate. So he made a point tomorrow to over talk to us. And he was pretty cool. I talked to him. Randomly, the guy went to the same high school I did in San Diego in Colorado. So that kind of like broke the ice a little bit. Like, hey, you know we're not going to we're not going to poach.
00:10:18
Speaker
Like the last thing I need to do as the owner of a hunting company is get caught poaching or doing something stupid because I'll just get roasted on broccoli and every other freaking farm out there. Like I very, I'm over cautious. I'm not, you know, if I'm wishing the animal being 400 yards from the border, like I don't want to be anywhere near that situation. So I made sure to make it really clear with them and just talk to them. So it was cool. So the plan was we're going to back back in like three to five miles.
00:10:45
Speaker
and set up base camp and then hunt in the morning. So we' we're going to hunt in in the morning. um Like every other thing you look at, it was way steeper than we thought. It took us, we didn't even get in there until like probably 7.30. I think we left at like 4.30 and it took us like almost three hours to make it four miles because it was just all uphill into this spot. But we got back there and a lot of guys had the same idea we did. It wasn't surprising. A lot of guys wanted to hunt the sides of this ranch. This is a ranch that's known for killing elk, right? So that's why I'm hunting it. You're like, do you know, there's elk there. Hiked in there. Um,
00:11:20
Speaker
And just weren't seeing, we're seeing sign, but we weren't seeing the elk on the public, right? And then there's like six other dudes in here, guys blowing bugles. And then we start finding elk, but all the elk we're finding are on private or on this piece of,
00:11:39
Speaker
landlocked public. That's not really landlocked. We got to kind of like, repel down to them. And I think we could have did it. i We're gonna get into that in a minute. But we we weren't seeing out, right? So we decided we're gonna stay there and hunt like one more day and see if we can find them. But It wasn't looking good. And the thing, one thing I've learned with hunting is like, don't waste your time in an area if it's not looking good. Like you only have so many days and like sometimes making a move is the best call. So we got up the next morning. This is nine three. This is day two of our hunt. um And all that we're seeing are on that landlocked private, um,
00:12:18
Speaker
but they' like public And I'm like, well, what's drive, what's back back out of here, you know, four miles and use the, cause mid-day for elk hunting is really tough. Like, especially when it's 80 degrees out, like you're really not going to see elk moving. They're going to be dark timber. Unless you saw them go to bed, like you're going to have a hard time finding them. So it's like, if you're going to make a move, like do it, you know, 10 a.m.
00:12:39
Speaker
3 p.m. So we make a move, we we hike out, we drive, pack everything. What about canvas cutters? You just roll those canvas cutters up, throw them in the truck, and you're packed up within minutes, right? Throw a net on it and go, go around the other side where those elk are, and we look at it, and it almost looks like like the worst triple black diamond you've ever seen to get down to these elk. like It's like there's power lines going down. like You could see where the public is to get down there. You could do it.
00:13:05
Speaker
But it's so steep that you can't see the top of the next power line going down. and um i
00:13:16
Speaker
Didn't, I don't know, I've gotten older, I've gotten wiser, it's 80 degrees. I don't want to go down there. And this public, we're gonna hunt down there. The bottom is 900 yards across. So now you have to make sure you kill that bull and he stays on that public. Because again, this ranch is a ranch that actually has signs that says you cannot retrieve your elk because these guys are selling tags. And there's some good bulls down there and the bulls were bubbling on that ranch, like we're just kind of cool because they're not getting chased.
00:13:44
Speaker
um We probably could have got it done. um I just, man, like trying to get him out of there would have been really tough. It would have been a bear of a hike, could have been hot, probably would have lost meat, and potentially would have lost the whole bowl. So as I said, you know what, let's not do it. We moved over to a burn that was up there, glassed the burn, and didn't see a single elk, saw a ton of deer. So much to the point that I looked it up on Bill Hunt, it took like five points of to store an archery tag back there. So that's a good unit.
00:14:12
Speaker
um So potentially, look behind it at some point. I have eight points over there, so maybe I can get a rifle tag. I'm not sure what the rifle tag takes. I got to look at that. But I looked at the archery, because the archery looked really fun. This big burn is just wide open, and there's this deer. I mean, I could have killed four bucks on this hunt that were four by four bucks, and bucks that most people would have shot. um I had one at 30 yards for five minutes. news There was a lot of deer.
00:14:37
Speaker
um So I shouldn't say I could have killed because I'd have to finish the kill to kill it. But there was a lot of deer. I'm sure if I was focused on deer that I could have got a lot of opportunities and let some arrows go at least. A lot more deer than I'll, that's for sure.
00:14:53
Speaker
um So we met some locals and they gave us a tip on another spot, boring that same private. Everyone's hunting along this private. This private is, I mean, how many thousands of acres it is, like 60,000 acres. And it's kind of like pieced out everywhere. So everyone's kind of, you're always trying to get next to this private in this area. They gave us this area and they're like, hey, go check this spot out. We call it a switchbacks, right? Meaning that you can't go to the cell unless you use a switchback if it's that steep. So we drove back.
00:15:19
Speaker
yeah through the canvas cutters out, it was like 10 miles down the road, through the canvas cutters out, slept, got the next morning, hiked into the spot called Switchbacks, and there was a ton of sign, but it was so thick that you just weren't gonna count, unless it came out in front of you, and you had, like, where all before it wasn't thick, like always was the public. We probably could've stayed there and got,
00:15:46
Speaker
You know, maybe that's more opportunities, but it was just like, it was a very difficult place to hunt. and I'm not a big fan of areas where you were kind of rely on the elk to come to you versus finding them. Right. And they weren't bugling so much. Like it wasn't like during the year, like a cold bugles in the morning, cold bugles at night. It wasn't like the other day going crazy. This is the third of September. It wasn't a high probability area. And I'm like, I only have eight hunting days, 10 days out here. Um,
00:16:13
Speaker
This isn't working. Let's make a move to another unit that I wanted to hunt. I think I missed a date. No, I didn't. Oh, there we go. No. When to switch back. So let's make a move to another unit. The other unit was 300 miles away. I think it was like five hours, five to six hours to get there.
00:16:38
Speaker
but um wanted to do it. I got some dope from someone about an area up there, which we didn't have that area. We'll get into that in a minute.
New Location and Local Tips
00:16:46
Speaker
And um so we make the drive all the way up there to this other unit, um six hours. Again, make a switch. I've killed animals by making a switch like this, even though most of it never, I never left a unit to kill an animal. I've left, you know, made a couple hour drives within units to make kill animals.
00:17:05
Speaker
because you got to go where they are. We make a switch, we go up to the spot, we get up there. end up going I always try and go to like the random like local spots, right like local dive bars, et cetera, to kick around. And we get in there, and we get this burger joint. We grab some water from the grocery store and some more snacks, go to this burger joint, and the guy's like kind of picking on me from where I'm first light. And then he kind of recognizes, oh, you're Drew from Tricer, blah, blah, blah. So he's good chatting. And he's like, dude, I used to be a guide.
00:17:35
Speaker
go check out this area of here, another burn, right? And he's like, we always kill Auchen here. So I was like, sweet, got the door from this guy. ah It was a one way in, it was like a, I don't know, it's hard to get an hour on that road to get to the spot, like the other side was closed off, it was kind of cool because a lot of guys won't be able to go to where we work because they're coming the wrong way and it was closed.
00:17:57
Speaker
So we were able to drive in from this one side of town to get in there. So we get in there. Again, just throw the bedrolls out. Canvas cutters out. ah Up until this point, Cade, my filmer, and Joey loved the canvas cutters. I got two more for them for this hunt to bring along for all my hunts for my filmers and for my kids or whatever. They're just such nice hunts to have.
00:18:19
Speaker
Well, I had my 16-year-old put their canvas cutters together and he put them together upside down. So it rained really hard that night and the water went into the seam where the zipper is and got them both wet. Cade got out of his canvas cutter and got in his truck. Joey lay in his all night in the rain. At one point, I thought Joey was fighting the rain.
00:18:42
Speaker
about a word the bad words he was saying in the middle of the night when he was up screaming. Joey's listening to this, I'm sure. It was, it's one of those things that's probably really funny right now, but in the moment Joey did not think it was funny. Joey was definitely ready to be done hunting. He was wet and cold and screaming and pissed off. um And then I had like the best night's sleep ever on this um um that night. Cause like, it was like, up until then I was like in like six hours, I ended up seeing like eight. So I was just feeling great the next morning.
00:19:09
Speaker
um but uh joey was not happy uh i should have mentioned that like i'm hunting with my buddy joey and then kade mattock from out hunts is filming for me um so we get up in the morning and um they're a little bent out of shape i'm just me who's like pretty much always go go go kind of half i've got a happy go luck if you're with me i'm very positive, like, Hey, yeah, let's do it. Like, I'm always like, I'm very positive guy. Like, it's just, I, that's who I am as a person. And and I always want to go, go, go. Like, you know, you can always kill them the last days you kill the first day. And I keep that mentality throughout the whole hunt. um They were not feeling that way. They were not chipper.
00:19:46
Speaker
um they did not get out of the truck, staying in the truck to sleep. And I was like, oh, I'm going to pack in like two miles or something. I ended up only going a mile and I'm going to glass and see what I can see where this guy told us to go. Because we have a big advantage where we are with the drop into this canyon where these oh would be if they're in there. So I hike in and within like 10 minutes and I'm glassing on the spot. I'm like, oh, there's 40 elk. Oh, there's 20 elk. Oh, there's another herd of elk.
00:20:14
Speaker
And they're far. I mean, as the crow flies, they're like four miles away. So this, you're talking like an eight mile hike in, but I'm like, if there's no code there, there's going to be ah down the bottom of this canyon. I hike out. My truck is still running. This is three hours later. My truck is still running. They're both passed out of my truck. um Again, rough night for those two. And I, uh,
00:20:35
Speaker
I just tell them, you know, like, hey, I know last night sucked, but we're going to get get and everyone put three days of food in their backpacks. We're going to pack in and we're going to go kill some elk because they're elk down here. We will get on elk in this canyon below us. We will, you know, love opportunities. I don't like to look at like, like watching elk on private. I hate this area we're hunting, all public.
00:20:58
Speaker
and loaded with that one. it was It was a good spot. Like I definitely would go back to the spot. I'll definitely, my choice number two for next year, I'll leave this unit for my, over the counter tag. um We're pretty light. I, for this part of the hunt, like the first part of the hunt, we were sleeping in my Kefara super tarp and then Joey's sleeping on another tarp that I had. For this part of the hunt, I was like, you know what? Let's just bring down my, I had that seek outside Twilight tent. I'm talking about this on the podcast.
00:21:24
Speaker
It's pretty rad. It's a two person hot tent, but like you definitely can do three dudes in there with a ton of room. We actually slept like a U shape and then like the whole middle is wide of all your gear. It's a rad tent. It almost like it's a wall tent style to it. It's a teepee, but like a wall tent, like the sides are like 18 to two two foot tall. So you can go right up against the sides. You leave the front open and a big vestibule in the front. And, um,
00:21:49
Speaker
You can leave it open, and you don't get all that condensation in there, which I love, because the tip here is taped, the zipper goes up to the top, right to the peak. And if you leave it open, like you can get rain in there and stuff. And with this, you can just leave the front open, because it has like almost like another vestibule in the front, against the wall tent style. And you don't get all that condensation. So it's really nice. So we hide down.
00:22:08
Speaker
um
00:22:11
Speaker
and ah
00:22:14
Speaker
When we get to the bottom of this hill going into this basin, or going into this area we're gonna they find this wallow.
Setting Up for Elk Hunt
00:22:21
Speaker
They called it Joey's wallow, because Joey did spot it. We get to the bottom, and everyone would've, this is a wall that everyone would've seen when we got to the bottom, but this is a wallow that was like, I don't even know, 100 foot long or 40 foot wide, and just like smells like piss. Like, oh, if you smell piss, you know you're on elk. There's this sign everywhere, there's this hoof marked everywhere, and I'm like, Joey,
00:22:45
Speaker
We're going to build you a blind. You're going to sit this blind. Stay here till dark. You're going to get a chance in an elk in the next couple of days. Like you're going to kill an elk here. Or at least get a chance at one. Very confident by looking at it. Definitely not my favorite style of hunting, but Joey's like a big tree stand guy and he definitely can do it. So we actually built him a blind, like a really bitchin blind. like 40 yards off, to the center, I think to the center of the wall, it was 40 yards. 40 yards off from the center. To that we built this blind, took some trees and built it up like three foot tall, pushed in all the way around. I mean, he basically had a log cabin up there to sit in for himself. Sit him up in there to stay for the night, weeping, kayaked, hiked down another mile and a half, sit up camp next to this creek, make water.
00:23:32
Speaker
I'm a big guy, big and MSR gravity filter guy now. I used to use like MSR pumps. I hate them. They're just like a pain in the butt. I got this gravity filters, a 10 liter bag and I run the drama light bag. So I have like a two, six liters and a four liter drama light bag. So I always make water so they get somewhere, fill up whatever that 16 liters of water and then go hunting, right? Then I'm good to go for a couple of days with three guys. We kind of went through, we didn't go through that twice in three days. Joey's a camel. Joey drinks a lot of water. He says he doesn't, but guys freaking.
00:24:01
Speaker
I don't even know where he puts it. I don't know how he's constantly pissing. So if we do that, me and Gade hike up. Again, this spot has turned out to be pretty popular, like everything. Hike up to this ridge one, a hot glass for him. And there's another dude sitting up there. He's actually sitting like a quarter mile to our, I guess it'll be our west.
00:24:20
Speaker
And I'm like, you know what, let's just move over to Center Spot, look for elk, go through a sunrise and we find a good six by six pole and like four cows in this basin. I think it's like a thousand yards from where we're sitting, but it's like a thousand yards involving like a death hike. Like it's going to take you three hours to get there. It's everything in where we were was like like that.
Hunt Challenges and Interference
00:24:43
Speaker
um So we yeah just make a plan, like let's go back to camp.
00:24:49
Speaker
Go ahead to Cammy, Joey. Joey, Cammy, y'all come in. ah Tomorrow, we're going to hike up over this mountain that surrounds that basin and get above it, and then kind of work that basin and then try and kill this bull who's in this basin. I don't know if you call it a basin or a bench. It's more like a bench, like a bull-type thing, big giant bench on top of this hill. I don't know. You can call it whatever you want to call it. um And ah so that's the plan. Joey's going to hit the blind. We're going to do that hike.
00:25:15
Speaker
Uh, got to the basin, terrible wind. Um, like when we could not, like my goal was to get up along the space and build, look into it, right? Your archery hunting. We could not get to the edge of the space in because there's freaking like the wind swirling. And at one point I looked down and right below me, there's a cow running towards me like a hundred yards below me out of the space. And I'm like, okay, they're blowing out. I couldn't figure it out. Like.
00:25:39
Speaker
data I find out like this dude who ended up meeting was camping he ended up coming in during the night It can't like right below where we were so he's blue. It was all forgot. I didn't know this at this point I don't know they all forgot over this guy can't like right on my elk and just blew him out of there um But whatever it's over the counter and get used to it Gloss of elk all around Joey this rag horn bowl, which we'll get to know this rag horn bowl tonight You'll hear about it him And then Joey ended up bumping a six by six pole because he went for a walk and bumped a six by six pole down below him. Ended up kind of working that hole around that whole basin, which was kind of fun. And just sitting down in glasses. He worked 200 yards with stem and stood in glasses. We glassed all day long into our eyes and blood, right? Like middle of the day, glassing. A couple of little naps here and there. but
00:26:27
Speaker
There was this, like, cricket investigation. I don't know what to do with the crickets in Colorado. I had the same thing happening. I don't know. are These crickets bit. Like, they ate everything. Like, the crickets were trying to eat. Like, my trekking poles are eating everything. And which by the way, I had pork trekking poles. And I'd freaking, like, crown dogs eat two of them. Sucked. But side note, like, they ruined two pairs of trekking poles for us. Whatever. I'm hoping I go get some new black diamonds and trekking pole handles.
00:26:54
Speaker
ah Gotta work the way around. At one point I glossed up a herd of like no drug, at least 100 elk, and they're on public. But there's a reason why they're by outfitter camps, because like to get to these things, it's like four miles of the crow flies. And it probably would take us, I don't even know, six hours to get to these elk. And to get them out is just, it's gonna kill us. Like you're just not, gonna i don I don't have an enemy to carry a bull that far anymore. I've done an eight mile pack out of a bull. It's not fun. um If I had,
00:27:25
Speaker
pack animals or more people maybe I want to be interested in doing it but like it would have been a commitment to get over to where these help were to kill these bulls and there was no easy way out like it was just even where we were we were like four miles from the truck and it was all uphill it would have been it would have been bad so we see him like oh there's a good you know there's a good herd about obviously there's all come here saw elk all day didn't get it done on it so
00:27:53
Speaker
We kept circling that thing. We get to ah basically 5.30 at night. We're glossing back towards where we were sitting the night before. And Cade's like, I got a note. And then I'm like, really? see And then he's got a got a big six by six bull. In the bottom of this canyon, that's like super steep. There's like a creek running down it. And it's, the crow flies 1,000 yards. But it's a mile to get to him. It's 5.30. And we gotta get on this bull. We gotta go.
00:28:24
Speaker
um So we make like what I consider probably the best lock I've ever made. ah Perfect wind. Wrap around. We have to drop down 900 feet, come back up 950 feet. We'll get to the bottom of this canyon. We're just like next to where this elk, everyone that fingers into where the elk is. I'm trying to explain this right. You can almost touch both sides of it and see if it is. I mean it's probably one of the steepest stuff I've ever been in.
00:28:48
Speaker
We're gonna go down and up that. So we go up it, and now I'm at a point, like we've pinned this out, we know exactly where we're going, we're gonna go right above the bright green bushes, that's where we're gonna stop, cause it all goes down below them. We'll get up there.
00:29:00
Speaker
I drop my pack, I sit down, and it's like almost like a little finger. I don't know how to describe it. so like It's like almost like a rolling finger to get over into the next canyon where this bull is. But once I top once i crest this finger, the bull's gonna be 60 yards below me. I'm going to be able to kill this bull. He's not gonna smell at me. I'm sitting there. I said, you look, we're filming everything. So I'm like, look, man, like what's this take? like Five, 10 minutes? Sit down. Get our heart rates right. like We have time. We got there way in record time. like We were flying. We still have like probably an hour of light left. This point is probably 6.30, just getting a little darker, I'm like 7.30, we're up there. And I'm like, we'll just sit down, take a minute. The wind, I'm like, you yeah it's on video, you'll see the video. we're gonna I'll tell you the name of it.
00:29:44
Speaker
I blow my wind checker, it's like perfectly blowing to the east, this bull's to the west, like we're gonna crest this thing, we're gonna kill this bull. It's gonna be all over, first archery alc. So I get up, we're filming, I walk over the top, bull's right there in the canyon, grab my bow, and the freakin' wind hits my back, and this, right onto this bull. And I watch the bull get up, and of course he gets up out of this ditch, he's like laying in the ditch, like where the water is, like he's, it's super cool down there.
00:30:13
Speaker
project right there for finding any kind of animals, especially elk, is like those fingers, the Northeast Spacey fingers by water are so much cooler. Go sit in one one sometime, like puffer water, and you'd be like, wow, that's 20 degrees cooler. If you're wearing a fur suit, like that's where you're going to be. Whenever I find elk, they're in those hellholes, unless it's peak rut, which we weren't at.
00:30:35
Speaker
So we, wind swirls, bull gets up, 70 yards behind the bush, 80 yards, 90 yards. Like I can't, I'm not going to shoot that far. Basically this bull kind of zigzags in front of us, all the way up and over, like 300 yards of above us. And then this goes over the hill and I watch this. At this point was the best bull of the trip, ended up being the second best bull. We'll talk about that in a minute, but second best bull of the trip,
00:31:03
Speaker
um
00:31:08
Speaker
And, uh, he's gone out of my life. Uh, we have to hike out of this thing. It is so steep to the top. We're still another, I don't know, 800 feet to the top of this thing. It was gnarly. So we hike all the way up to the top and, um, get up there and we still have some light. Surprisingly, I'm like, well, what are we going to do? And I'm like, we're going to glass. ah We're going to glass and still, still have light. We still go pull.
00:31:35
Speaker
Like again, I hunt from dark to dark, like you have to hunt dark to dark. And especially with elk, dude, like that last like 20 minutes is magical. That's when they're moving. That's what I told Joey, like in this blind, like you need to be in this blind until dark. Cause that's when they're going to come out. So I sit down and like instantly kids like God elk. I mean like within like 10 seconds, God elk. And these elk are feeding towards Joey's, Joey's, what do you call it? Joey's wallop, Joey's wallop.
00:32:02
Speaker
And I'm on film and I'm like, dude, if Joey moves out of that blind before dark, I'm going to kick his butt. Like, you need to stay. So I'm texting Joey in reach, like, Joey, stay in the blind. they Don't move. They're coming in, dude. Like, we if they're going to come in, they're either they're going to hold up in the timber. or They're going to come in, like, just stay there, please. And it's that rag horn bull and the cows. Like, it's just, this this bull has now become known, right? Which, you know, a couple of times. And so we get a text back from Joey, like, okay. And then I get a text back, they're here.
00:32:30
Speaker
and He watches these things come in from 200 yards in front of him. This is not me knocking Joey. Like please understand, this is just time to tell you what happened on this hunt. And um Joey has in front of him and melts down. He has a, the rag horn is mounting the cows and he has buck fever like no other. He says he's shaking like crazy.
00:32:59
Speaker
For some reason, he thinks he has no time to range, even though they watch him come in. Like, if he had a back, he'd have a dead L. 100%. Joey is like, I can't have said enough, such a better shot than me at 3D archery. When it comes to target shooting, Joey is phenomenal. When it comes to animals, it turns out he has really bad bug fever. Like, really bad. And um they come in, he doesn't range, takes a shot.
00:33:31
Speaker
Thinks he shot it. Elk run, takes another shot. Thinks it was good. And ah ah he texts me and he's like, I don't know. I think I shot it. He ranged for 43 yards. Or at least we thought there were 43 yards. Which we thought. thought He did not range. He thought 43. So I'm gonna come look for blood.
00:34:01
Speaker
I have to hike over there from where we are, it's about two miles. We hike over there, meet him. He's all shaken up. ah He ends up coming back because his phone's dying. like He comes back, meets on the trail. We go back over there.
00:34:13
Speaker
where he shot is such thick mud and the grass is like three foot tall. So like finding an arrow is going to be impossible. Like it's like, it's, they're going to go into it. It's going to be really hard to find narrow. So we spent the better part of an hour trying to find his arrow right there. gives It gets open metal. Like there's no elk there. Obviously he saw the bull go into these bushes. ah He saw where he went and where the cows went. Um, but not a drop of blood. So I'm already a little bit like,
00:34:42
Speaker
I don't know but you know you said you hit him and who knows you could have hit him and the arrow didn't exit and maybe got him to the shawl. I don't know like it's happened. It can happen. The Giga Chanel could not have any blood. It's archery, right? They're thick animals.
00:34:56
Speaker
um He's catching almost where the bull is standing. It's 40 yards. Okay, we we don't range anything. I'm thinking of it. Uh, nothing. So I said, you know what, dude, like there's no reason to go into those bushes right now. Like if it was a bad shot, if it was a gut shot, you know, we don't want to bump, plus one who's bumped the silk. But we're he's, but he's like adamantly, like he thinks he killed the sock at this point. Now he's convinced himself that he thinks he shot the sock. Even though there's no blood, but we can't find the arrows. The arrow could be in the elk, right? So we go back to camp. I was like, what's not poems go back to camp. Um, but sleep it off. Um, of course he had a great night's sleep. Right. With that.
00:35:33
Speaker
woke up a little bit later, hiked over there in the daylight, all three of us, and we're looking for blood. And there is not a drop of blood anywhere, anywhere. Um, where they ran into, it's a burn, keep in mind. So there's not like a wall place these things can go. Like, it's like, we spent four, four to five hours, just all three of us, just gritting this place out, not a drop of blood, not like a bed really down. Um,
00:36:02
Speaker
He missed the elk. So we go back looking for this arrow again. I range it. It's 28 yards is what I range.
Missed Shot Incident
00:36:11
Speaker
Um, so, uh, I have him stand there 28 yards and then you know, he's Joey's doing that thing. We're like, well, no, no, maybe who's here. Here's here. He's here. Um, long story short, I think what happened and I don't want to put words into his mouth is the bull could have been anywhere from 20 to 28 yards and just buck fever man and took over and he did not range and he missed this bull. Not a drop of blood. um So yeah he misses the bull. We ended up at that point.
00:36:45
Speaker
um
00:36:48
Speaker
We have a lot of clouds all thunder going on with hail midday. We ended up glassing up at that. I said, you know what? I'm going to build another blind kind of above you. There's another blind, like a quarter mile above him, another wall. I'm going to build a blind up there because I'm pretty smoked at this point, too, and the doctor coming in. Let's see if we can find him again. So me and Cade get up there, and we're sitting above Joey that night. We end up glassing up um a lion.
00:37:18
Speaker
a bear and then heard about two words about protecting joy. They're coming in, interrupting up that same rag horn. So the brag horn was totally fine. Um, he was just trying to get it on the cell before, before anyone else got on him. All the, before the big bulls caught on him.
00:37:33
Speaker
um Glass them up with, they we tell Joy, hey, they're coming in again. You gotta to get them this time. But they held up in the timber and they probably came in like right after dark. Like my experience with wallows and drinkers, I've killed them off of a drinker before. And it's like the last 15 minutes, like no earlier than that. like Like it looks like, if you look at my sunrise behind me, like sunset behind me, it's like dusk. Like you can barely see you don you bare this to your pins, they're gonna come in. That's all you get to kill them.
00:38:03
Speaker
Um, doesn't, uh, doesn't come in solved. No, that's it. Doc doesn't come in. Um, we did say that line, which is kind of cool. We ended up glossing up, uh, three lines on that trip, which is kind of crazy call. I was going to ban line hunting. We've got some three lines. So noble. Um, we did see it, which makes you feel a lot better. Right. Um,
00:38:32
Speaker
it's It's makes you feel, you know, a lot better. You didn't get in a wounded animal. Didn't hurt it. But he didn't come into Joey again. He didn't give joy a second chance. Um, we're getting close to the end here. Last, let's do the last day. So the last day at this point, Joey's kind of over it. I'm pretty tired. I'm smoking at this point for like 50 miles. That's 50 miles of like gnarly miles with heavy backs and You're pretty smoked. Joey's really smoked. um I think Joey's biggest takeaway from this hunt would be like your physical fitness is more important than anything else than your gear on over you know and this kind of stuff. He did really good with like the camping and stuff. like it his first side This is Joey's first big hunt. His first time backpacking. You got to give him credit. like I kind of dreamt of the wolves. like You're going to hunt with me. like You're going to go on a hardcore hunt. like It's what I like to do is back back out. I have a backpack hunting company.
00:39:26
Speaker
um But he definitely, the physical fitness definitely got him. I mean, he's going to, he says next year he's going to be, he used to play a CrossFit guy. Like he used to do like this competition and everything like old douchey stuff. You know, like I don't know what they do flip tires and stuff. So he's going to get back into that. I think. So next year he says he's going to kick my ass, but we'll see. I don't know. I'm getting older. He might get me.
00:39:49
Speaker
Next morning get up I move into that whether I like the wall I was in above Joey's I can still glass everything We're still up up on those hills. I end up glassing up a six by seven probably three twenty three thirty bull Big bull biggest bull the trip. He's up on a ridge line about a mile away and i'm Like that bull, if he drops over towards us, we're going to kill him. Or at least you get a chance to kill him. So we're just watching him. Because like one thing I've learned, especially with any animal, but especially elk, like when they're on their feet moving, like good luck. like Unless you're like at a pinch point where they're moving towards you, like trying to catch an elk on their feet is like impossible. like They're going to move far in the morning. and They're moving back to where they're going to bed. um This bull's up on this ridge.
00:40:32
Speaker
and He gets bugled at by, again, there's hunters in here. there's and At all times, there's probably six guys in this cant in this area running within this four square miles or whatever. ah He gets bugled at, and we were told like, don't bugle, don't call, they're smart. These these the old ones are. And that bull, we watched him look at the bugler, and then stop, freeze, and walk over the other side, and out of our lives. And I did not want to go run over. Like at this point, he's a mile away. Who knows where he's going the other side. These are big mountains. We're not going to find him on that side. If he came towards us, then I'd be like, OK, we can kill him. But where he went, we weren't going to find him. And it was a good six or seven bowl, biggest bowl of the trip for sure, bigger than the one that I had a chance at and didn't kill. I did have a black bear up that morning feeding right towards us, didn't have a tag.
00:41:24
Speaker
um I mean, it would have been very killable. A little bit fun to have attack as he was like coming down. A lot of bare sight in there. It's cool to see him. We're going to do one more night down there, the bottom. Again, Joey's over to this point.
00:41:37
Speaker
And then thunder, sleet, rain comes in at like two o'clock. And I'm like, you know what? Let's just hike out. Cause we were going to, we were going to hike out that night at night. And I was like, dude, this storm keeps up. Like I definitely want to be, you know, it was, it could be hot, but it could be really cold. You can definitely have a thunder break up there. And I have all the gear, but it's like the last thing I want to do is put a bunch of rain gear and hike three miles out of this canyon while it's raining and sleeting on us.
Ending the Hunt
00:42:04
Speaker
Um,
00:42:06
Speaker
So we end up hiking out in the rain, in thele the sleet, the hunt's over. We'll finally get out of that thing, get up there, roll up the canvas cutters up, load everything, pack everything up. Cade's truck won't start, because apparently maintenance is not important to 23-year-olds, Cade. And so I end up towing Cade out. i'm like it won He keeps trying to jump with his hurtbox, but it's like his rrrr. And I know that sound. I'm like, oh, your fuel pump's bad.
00:42:34
Speaker
So I end up YouTubing, I'm towing him out, I end up towing him like 40 miles out of this thing. Always have a tow rope in your car, like 100% you need a tow rope and shackles. Tow rope, shackles, jack, hand, shovel, gas cans, water, those are the things. Like if you have that stuff, you can pretty much get out of most things. Tow him out and YouTube him how to find it, figure out what he got, field pump is, take a seat out, actually cut his carpet, you can actually cut the That is smacking with like my scripts a bunch and his car starts. So I don't know if he fixed it or not. I told him to fix it when he got home. I hope he did before we go to Mexico before next night in November, we go hunting here in Colorado again. We got it running. It was good. But man, that's it, man. I think we did eight full days of hunting. It was cool. I would probably take away from the hunt if I could do it again.
00:43:29
Speaker
I would go later. Did you hear my kid in the background? My door's locked and he's trying to get in. Apparently the locked door means banged louder and yelled louder. So if I could do it again, I would go back on the 10th. The day I came home, I got home on the 11th. If I could do it again, I would go back on the day I came home and I think we could get it done. I think they were getting close to running and out of the time to go. I definitely wouldn't want to go during the muzzleloader season, which I think was the weekend after. So I might try and like next year do it, like whatever that is, like the eighth through the 18th or whatever the muzzleloader starts like up until that day. I don't want to hunt it. um do You get a bunch of muzzlers in there and just chaos, right? That's my takeaway from that. Definitely go back later.
Reflecting on the Hunt
00:44:15
Speaker
I wouldn't change a thing, man. It was fun. Time of my life got the coolest job in the world, man. I didn't get it done. 7% of the success rate, you know, going to do an over-the-counter elk hunt in Colorado is going to be tough. You know the elk are going to be call shy. You know that you're going to have to go because people don't want to go. And we did everything right, man. Joey missed. You know, the wins world. I mean, I didn't get hit in my bowl. Like it's just like things are going to happen, it man. Like things have to go right when you archery hunt. Like I just.
00:44:44
Speaker
There's a lot of factors in there. And this one, they just, I mean, if that, if that one would have stayed, like it was so perfect for that five minutes I was sitting there on that ridge and it just didn't happen. The wind swirled and we lost it, you know? We actually were entitled to this film. We're going to put a whole film together. We're going to call it false summit. I told him we need to call it false summit because like this house was filled with so many false hopes. Like for one, every freaking hell you went up, it was a false summit and he had to keep going.
00:45:14
Speaker
And that's like so much of this hunt. Like we got close to bulls and it wouldn't happen or get close to elk. There's more stories and there's other elk we were chasing and didn't happen. And Joey, Joey thought he had an elk, but he actually missed. I was going to call it false summit. And that's so much of what hunting is, right? So much of hunting is just false summit and being willing to keep hiking. Cause you continue to hike at some point, you're going to get to the top of that summit. You're going to get it done. But man, that's it. That's my, uh,
00:45:38
Speaker
2024 Colorado over the counter elk experience. I hope you listen to this whole thing. that You enjoyed my story. If you like it, you know, DM me or text me or email me. Let me know that you like these individual pods a little different for me. Um, talking old time, but, uh, yeah, man, stay after it.
00:45:57
Speaker
wyoming morning we kills some mantelope do it um june thank you for listening to the trier podcast do us a favor and like and subscribe on whatever platform you're listening on give us a follow on instagram and facebook atd trier usa and go and check out all of our innovative gear ah w w w dot trir usa dot com until next time Let's do it! Unzieden!