Virtual Hunt 2005!

Opening Weekend

August 27/28, 2005

Game Unit 38 and 18

I think I bit off more than I can chew when I decided to hit four places for elk on my way to my camping site along Mulstay Creek. Its opening day and I wanted to spread out to take advantage of both the low and high country where I thought few people would get to. Welcome to opening day for Archery Elk in Colorado 2005!

The day started out in the dark timber near a 4 wheeling road above the small town of Empire, Colorado. Take Main Street North until it turns into a dirt road and keep going. Be courteous of the neighborhood you are driving through. Speeds are 15-25 mph at best along this curvy, steep road. You can park at the Clear Creek County Mine site. There is plenty of room for parking there but NOT for horse trailers. People park here and usually ATV up to the many roads above town. If you want to head into Mad Creek valley then you’ll want to take the road to your LEFT BEFORE you get to the parking area. There is a large fence where the Mine property begins. You can’t miss it. Park there and have fun on your ATV. The road is ok if you have a Jeep and tight if you have a full size pickup truck. I recommend this area for anyone with an ATV or a good Jeep. Access is much easier if you have the right vehicle. Walking the road is a waste of time. The road gives you great access to the high country. Rifle hunters with a late season elk tag should note this area is a wintering area so you can take advantage of that. I found lots of winter scat in the area that was enough to convince me a good size herd winters on the ridges above Empire.

My first mistake is hunting the weekends only because all the scat I had seen was already a day or two old. Despite all the roads in the area the game trails appeared active with moderate sign. Elk are still very spread out this time of year. And the day was warm as soon as the sun rose. That has convinced a lot of elk to be active at night and bed in the cool shadows of some north slope in the aspens or dark timber. Some elk have elected to go up high and stay there as the land is still very green this time of year. And there are few bugs up high to buzz around your ears. Elk have a different routine on the weekends. They seem to go somewhere else more remote and more quiet than their weekday routine. The human population was out in force this weekend. People were all over. Even when you thought you were alone a car or hiker or ATV would pass by.

Then next mistake is trying to tackle a huge chunk of land. Land too large to see in a weekend. It’s best to find one valley or creek and stay put in that area. Colorado has A LOT of public land and to try and conquer it all is impossible. Not even the elk, who live there full-time, can see it all. Find a tight alpine valley or lush forest with lots of water and let the evidence dictate your plan from there. I finally figured it out by Sunday. The elk were most active EARLY in the morning. By 9am it seems all the elk activity was over. The elk were coming out of their beds late in the day. Most of their activity was at night.

Anyhow, back to Unit 38. It has great access if you have a great ATV or Jeep. Now I think I “understand the Jeep thing” a little better. Unit 38 is great if you have a vehicle that will take you over big rocks and up steep hills. And it does beat the heck out of walking. I drove up a little but not far enough. The aspen covered west slope of this hill was a great place to be opening day. I didn’t make because I stopped short. My full-size pickup was too big for the road. You could hunt North of this area too. The main 4wd road through there took you through a lot of nice areas. I saw about 5 trucks up there. 4 of them had ATV trailers and a much better chance at the high country. Unit 38 is a busy place on the weekends and that had a big effect on the local elk herd. I didn’t hear any bugling or cow calling. It was a warm day from the start. The habitat in the area was nice but there wasn’t a lot of water. I did find a small spring than ran down the steepest part of the hill. It had potential if you were a mountain climber. The ridges had a nice mixture of aspen and pine. Where the elk were I don’t know. I believe they were in there but spread out and very aware of the weekend crowds. If the weather was too warm for me then it was WAY to warm for the elk. This photo was taken here on the map. The whole area was nice and showed some potential if you dig deeper into it.

I found this elk skull up there. Either scavengers found a winter kill or hunters deboned the elk right there. It looks like a young bull from the size of the skull and the quality of his teeth. I also found many bones of some young deer. Seems winter can be brutal at this elevation. There wasn’t a lot of water in this part of the unit. It is generally drier on the east side of the continental divide in Colorado. You can see in the photo were the bull’s antlers were cut out. Given the fact there was a 4wd road nearby I don’t know why they didn’t take the whole elk. But not everyone is interested in the whole thing. It could very well be this was a bull that died in the spring and the person was just after the antlers.

Here’s a photo of the nearby high country that also showed a lot of potential. Water was the only limiting factor in the area. Oh, and all the roads, people and homes. There’s little room left for a lot of elk. I need to buy the CD from CODOW on elk populations by game management unit to get a better understanding.

Next stop the headwaters of Blue Creek above timberline. I drove up to the top of Berthoud Pass and parked at the old ski area. There is a road that you can walk to the weather station on top. It takes you through very cool, dark timber and above. The parking lot was full and people where everywhere. I left my bow in the truck for this trip and just brought the camera. If you have a deer tag there were LOTs of deer sign in this area. And if you timed it right you could find some elk up and over the divide. I walked the tundra up and over and around the corner to peek over the edge at Blue Lake. With my high-powered binoculars I noticed a few things. People were everywhere like ants! On the trail above me, across the valley from me. People were all over the place so I knew I wouldn’t find elk feeding around the lake on a weekend. I did find some scat on the tundra and prints but they were old. From this summer sometime which was recent enough to say there are elk in the area. But not this day. I’m sure they were down lower in the trees or a few valley’s over where there were not as many people. There were so many game trails across the valley. Made me think there were possible some sheep in the area instead of elk. This place has easy access from above and some potential on these warm summer days. I would like to go back during the week and early in the morning to see what’s living in this alpine valley and making all those trails. Actually the area behind me in this photo had good potential too. It has a small creek according to the map. Bring a good pair of binoculars or even a spotting scope if you want to enjoy the views up here.

I decided to pass on hiking up and over the mountain to peek into the Vasquez Peak Wilderness. I was running out of daylight and there were too many people in the area. I headed down the road to Mulstay Creek for the evening hunt and to camp.

Access to Mulstay Creek is just off of Hwy 125. The short and moderate 4wd road will take you close to the base of Parkview Mtn. I don’t think you even need 4wd but you do need a high clearance vehicle. The area is an old logging area and there are many more roads than the main 4wd road. But they are no longer passable with lots of fallen and growing trees. There are some nice meadows on your way back that you should check out. The creek flows all the time and is the only source of water in the area. And that’s where I found all the best elk sign. It wouldn’t be the Troublesome if I didn’t see deer but I did. I saw (here) two young bucks not far off an old logging road. The mountain peaks you see in the background are the Never Summer Mountains in Unit 171. I’m very close to the border of Unit 17. At a glance on the map I didn’t think this part of the Troublesome was very large. It’s huge. Don’t believe any map you see on the area. You can walk a mile on the map and it would be closer to 3 miles on the ground. At the top of this meadow was a very small spring. There were many springs on this northern slope. The ridge was huge and went up for miles and west for many more miles. It is where the elk bed. But where? Pick a spot because it all looks the same. I found elk scat all over the ridge and some very well defined game trails. The recent rain had removed all the tracks and so finding a print became difficult. The ground has since hardened up and no animal was leaving a track on the many game trails. Bottom line was I had to really dig to find any evidence of fresh elk sign. And even then it was very spread out over miles. The evidence is there but it’s like finding a needle in a haystack. I did find some scrapes at the top of this meadow. One was very fresh with broken limbs and bark on the ground. The tree behind it was smaller in size but the scrape was older – from last year. That pattern tells me the same bull returned to scrape again. I wondered what he looked like. I sat and did some cold calling in the area, hoping to get a curious bull to respond. It was very quiet. In fact the whole evening I slept out under the stars and didn’t hear anything at all. The quietness was too quiet if you have ever seen a horror movie. You can hear for miles around there too. Around 3am I awoke to a high wailing pitch. Turned out to be a pack of coyotes that sounded like they were a mile away or so. I was actually very surprised NOT to hear any bugling in the safety of darkness. I knew the elk are out moving around more at night but all was quiet in this neck of the woods.

Sunday arrived and I SLEPT IN! I don’t know how that happened. The sun was nearly up before I had all my gear on and heading West through the trees. I checked the creek valley where I had seen all those trails and elk sign. Nothing. I continued West until I found this very nice game trail. Then I found some very fresh scat. FROM THIS MORNING! If I hadn’t slept in I might have seen this lone bull walking through the woods. I was able to see faint indentions of his track. It was large. And where the trail crossed a spring I found more tracks. I was following him. Just on the other side of the spring where I could see the long facing ridge that went on for miles I let out a bugle. Let me just say if you don’t have a Rocky Jacobsen bugle tube THEN BUY ONE IMMEDIATELY! It has the most realistic sound I’ve heard and I’m very critical of bugle tubes. I had yet to find one that sounded so realistic until I found Rocky Jacobsen’s bugle. So I let out this loud locator bugle because Mulstay Creek is just below me and running fast in this steep section. Almost immediately I hear a high pitched sound. I listen as well as I can for the location of it. Downstream, up the big ridge about ½ mile away. It was a persistent reply. Knowing I was the only hunter in the area gave me hope. I start walking quickly down the trail, drop down into the ravine, wonder how the bull got up the steep hill on the other side and continue following his tracks. A tiny sign of where he kicked up dirt here and there as he walked. He was heading up to the top of this ridge. I cow call once on the other side. Maybe too much as I recall the events now. I stop to engage him again with the bugle. I think I may have blown it the same way. More cow calling, more walking. No response. Then I lost his trail as the game trail faded out into nothing. A ½ mile later and from the location I heard the sound and nothing. All is quiet in the woods again. It’s nearly 9am now. I had first heard his bugle about 0830. The more I think about it the more I realized I messed up. I had him convinced once and I should have STOPPED calling until I closed that gap. And I should have ran to the sound. But the terrain didn’t allow for that unless you could claw up steep sections, over logs all while being quiet as a ghost. I called too much in this early season and probably scared him off at the first bugle I let out. I was lucky enough to get a response and I over did it from there. Next weekend would be different. I’d get up earlier, sit on a trail, listen and bugle only once unless I heard a bugle first. I was happy to find a bull that was willing to respond. This area wasn’t busy at all and the elk sign was all over. Some new, mostly older sign but still good activity in the area. If anyone has the time there is bull up in the Mulstay Creek area. Good luck to you as it looks like there are a million places for them to hide. Maybe they will be more vocal in the up coming weeks.

My day ended as I walked this very old logging road further West near the base of Parkview Mtn. I highly recommend this route as it took me through very old forests. The trees were huge and must have been hundreds of years old on this north facing slope. The elevation was perfect too. The air was cool, the creek was nice and there was no way anyone or anything would find you if you wanted to disappear back in there. I found some large deer tracks in there. If anyone is looking for a big timber buck I’m sure there are several back in there. I didn’t find any recent (with the last 3 months) elk sign on or around the old logging road. Walking was difficult over logs and between young pines. But if you walk the trail from where the road ends (right at the creek) for about 1 hour you’d be in a good spot at the base of Parkview Mtn. If you notice the aerial photo shows you the many layers of logging roads that are now nearly impassable even on foot. It’s a good reference to use for where you are at on the map. If you can spend some time back where the two creeks meet during the week I believe you would find some elk. I know it’s a little close to the 4wd road but there is little to no traffic back there during the week in August and September. Walking or driving the 4wd road is a good idea if you are in a hurry. But you’ll find a lot more elk sign away from the road. The road takes you through some very dry land once it gets away from the creek. Not a good place to find any elk. So stick near water to increase your chances at finding elk in this area.

The elk on public lands get bombarded with a lot of humans making elk sounds in the woods. I think I’ve learned my lesson and to use my call sparingly or be so realistic that you would swear I was an elk even if you were standing next to me. I’m not a great elk caller, I’ll admit. So I should only speak when spoken to if you will. And put out maybe one good bugle in the morning in a location that gives me credibility with the elk in the area. On an elk trail near where I’m seeing lots of fresh sign for example. In other words call in a location where I can be more believable. I give all the credit to the calls I use. They make me sound much better than I am.

See you next weekend as I attempt to hunt a nearby Wilderness area. My biggest obstacle is Labor Day Weekenders. If I can avoid all those waves of people I might see some elk.