Here is a Colorado Elk Hunting youth story that has been sent in for everyone to enjoy!
Big Congratulations from Colorado Hunting Journal! Way To Go Stevie!
We had a great hunt this year, here is our Colorado hunting experience.
We saw a lot of deer and Stevie shot his first elk which is a very nice 5 x 5 bull opening day. It was very late in the afternoon with only about 15 minutes of shooting light left when we heard a cow call nearby. We got up from where we were sitting and walked only about 200 feet along the ridge and spotted about 40 head of elk grazing the hillside about 60 yards away. Luckily we saw them before they saw us. The herd had 5 bulls in it with 2 of them being visibly larger then the rest. It took until the last seconds of legal shooting light for Stevie to get a clear shot at one of the two larger bulls and he dropped him in his tracks with 1 shot.
That’s when the work started. The bull was on a very steep hillside. It took an hour in the dark to gut him and get back to the horses. We then spend 5 hours the next morning with a strong cold wind blowing getting the bull skinned, quartered, loaded on the mule, and back to camp. We were so tired we did not even hunt that afternoon. Monday we hunted in the morning and Stevie shot a buck deer. We took care of that and got it back to camp thanks again to our trusty mule and then packed up the elk meat and hauled it out to the parking lot and to town and the processors. We went back Tuesday morning after a welcome night’s sleep at home and a shower and took all day and 2 round trips on horseback to get our camp out. All in all, I figured we put 40 miles on the horses and mule in 5 days. It was 12 – 14 miles on Tuesday alone. A heck of a lot of work but well worth it.
We can’t wait until next year for more Colorado Elk Hunting adventures.
