Curious to know what your opinions were/who you went with!

A buddy and I are wanting to look into going on a guided hunt in the near future, and I'd like to see your stories/photos and experiences with guides/outfitters.

We both Archery, Muzzleloader, and Rifle hunt...so all experiences are appreciated!

Thanks

So what are you the most interested in, a bull hunt for 5,000+ or a cow hunt for 600+

There is not only a big price difference but the hunts are quite different.

Many of the Outfitters / Agents here can fix you up for $3,000 on up. I personally use Cabela's quite a bit and they've never let me down. http://www.cabelas.com/cabelas...01&cm_re=oa*left*elk

Ted - We may do one of each, in separate years.

Are the hunts for cows really not a challenge at all?



Kensco - I've heard of the Cabelas Tag service and heard that was a good deal. Thanks I forgot all about them..

If you can shoot any at all you will kill a cow in North East New Mexico the first day on private land.

Bugle,

A couple of thoughts first to qualify where I’m coming from or to “set the stage” so to speak.

Been on two elk hunts. Spent close to $10k. Ain’t killed an elk yet.
Does that bother me? Not in the least. I been killing shit for 52 years. Elk probably don’t die much different than anything else does. Alive one minute, gone the next.

First elk hunt was a DIY public lands hunt with 8 other guys. I only knew one of the guys before the hunt. Pretty much regret meeting all but one of the others. Hunted just out Ouray, Colorado, in the Umcompahgre National forest. Public lands hunt with hunters stacked on top of each other. Would never do a public lands DIY hunt again unless I had pack animals or flew in, and then packed in to a drop camp. If you’re within four of five miles of a road, folks are stacked on top of each other, good luck. I think success rate is something like 16%. Saw elk first fifteen minutes of the first day of season. Didn’t see much anything else (1 bear, 1 coyote, 1 mule deer) for the next five days. Beautiful country though.

A couple of years later a friend of mine who is a high muckety muck in a local RMEF chapter invited me to one of their banquets. I went, had a few too many cervezas and bought an elk hunt at auction. Supposed to be an early season bugle hunt. However Hurricane Ike had other plans for me. Ended up going later in the season. Turned out to be a migration hunt. Problem was during the middle of the week I was there, it was hotter in Bozeman Montana (71 degrees F) than it was in Miami Florida. So no elk migrated out of Yellowstone. Ended up spending the last two days of the hunt cooking for the group.

I had one of the most memorable experiences and probably the best time of anything I have done in the last 25 years, on my Montana hunt. I would go again in a heartbeat. In fact the outfitter liked my cooking so well I have a standing invitation come back and hunt if I will cook.
If you go with the idea that your hunt will not be successful unless you take an elk, you may be disappointed. If you go seeking an experience, I think you will be rewarded. I’m a flatlander who lives on the Gulf Coast of Texas. It is hard to describe the thrill and the emotions evoked by seeing a 100 cow elk coming over a ridge at sunrise, or getting too close to a grizzly bear scavaging on a carcass, or walking down the side of a mountain through dead fall timber in a foot of snow flushing out mule deer bucks. Buy good gear, good boots, get in shape. Even when your young, traipsing up the sides of mountains between 7,000 and 10, 000 ft. will test your mettle.


PM me and give me your phone number or I’ll give you mine if you want details.

Here are a few pics. Colorado first, then Montana.
Best
GWB

Colorado,

Here is the only mule deer I saw in 5 days of hunting. I did not have a tag for a mule deer. I had just been in a heated discussion with four guys that arrived at prime time and proceeded to post themselves at the four corners of this clearing.(its called the “cabbage patch” )I had been sitting at one end of this 100 yd x 200 yd clearing for three hours before they arrived about 45 minutes before dark. I got so pissed that I picked up my stool and walked to the middle of the clearing and sat down till they left.



















my bud’s elk. Six DIY public land hunts before he shot his first elk. He has now made 9 trips to Colorado on public land hunts and shot two elk. This one was the best. It is a 6 x 6.

Some Montana photos

Geedubya,

I live in Ouray. Funny to hear your story and see your pics. I killed my first two bulls hiking straight out of Ouray and I never saw another hunter. The elk are here but you won't find them within two miles of an ATV trail.

Don

GWB-

Beautiful country and fantastic pics!

I enjoyed them very much...Thanks for posting

DC,
Todd,

Perhaps I gave the wrong impression in my comments about public land hunts. Maybe I should have qualified my post by saying I would never do a public lands hunt the way my first one was done.

First off, its 1700 miles or so from Houston to Ouray. It took three days traveling to get there. I got paired with a guy I had never met. I am about as harum scarum of a guy as you would ever want to meet, plus I'm a gadget guy and always misplacing things. The guy I was riding with was OCD and the picture of organization. A place for everything and everything in its place. The guy was so clean and neat that about every fifteen minutes he would take a wet wipe and wipe his face and hands then apply a moisturizer to said hands and face. Each time we stopped to spend the nite he'd take a shower when we got there, a shower before bed and a shower when he got up in the morning. Too make matters worse, the second day of the hunt, I backed my four wheeler into the back fender of his brand new chevy p/u and put a scratch (the first) in the paint.

It was the guys I was with, the camp/living arrangements, and the method of hunting while there that I did not agree with. I could totally hi-jack this thread and have you breaking ribs laughing so hard if I were to describe what a clusterfuck it was.

Let me just say I was not allowed/strongly discouraged from going anywhere on my own without someone else. The old guys I were with evidently were uneasy about being out in the AM or PM in the dark. We would go out in the morning and walk up hill for an hour and a half,then sit for four hours, then walk back in and get some terrible shit the guy that was cooking would prepare. Then go back out in the afternoon and do the same thing over again. Get back in just after dark. Eat some more terrible shit, then go to bed. In a week, we never had a campfire or sat outside. Never got more than a mile off the road as we were above 8,000 feet and these guys would walk a couple hundred yards and have to stop and take a blow for five minutes and then walk an another hundred yards and over and over. Pretty soon it would be. Lets stop here, it looks like a good place.
Even makes it more enjoyable when one of them tells you about the second day of the hunt, "I'd just thought I'd let you know that the only reason you're here is that one of our regular guys couldn't make it this year and we needed someone else to come along to help defray expenses." Thanks a lot guys!

One of the old guys had prostate problems. He would have to wake up and piss about every hour. Now mind you there are eight guys in a tent with beds stacked 3 per side and two on the end. He never could find his flashlight and it would be snowing outside. So he would be standing about a foot from my head pissing in a 1 gallon coffee can. I'd have to wake up and shine a light so he could see what he was doing and as an act of self defense. Not a pretty sight.

If I were going to do another public lands hunt I would certainly do it different than that. However, there is always a learning curve and I figure you've got to pay your dues in just about anything you do.
Best
GWB

Bugle, you live within three hours of some of the best hunting in the US right in New Mexico. Yes, you must draw a hunt or buy a landowner tag but driving sure beats flying if it is possible. A lot of excellent guide services in NM and yes some bad. Be glad to help where I can. I will be going back into NM in late Oct/Nov and with the same guide/outfitter as in past years.

Good luck on your selection and be glad to answer and questions via PM.

I've done both Cow and Bull with this outfitter they are one of Cabelas. However, I just called them. I did the Cow first to see what I was getting into. They have over 100,000 arces under lease in NW Colorado and you can hunt from Sept-Dec.Outfitter-Good, Food-Good, Low Camp-Slept in a double wide trailer with hot showers, and Guides-Great for bull hunt. I've done two cow hunts the first guide was OK the second was much better.First time out 3X1 just put us on a ridge then used the bull hunters to move the elk our way. Second time 1X1 was more like the bull hunt we rode Mules up high and hunted hard. Sucess 100% two cows and a small 5X6 Bull in three yrs. I hunted late around Thanksgiving each time.Out of all the times I have been there only one person (82 yrs old with a 243 who shot at several cows) didn't fill their tag this includes Bulls,Deer, and Cows with up to 15 people in camp each time.You can check their wedsite at www.elkhornoutfitters.com

A cow elk story...

Taken in the Carrizo Plain and surrounding mountains of South Central California

We were hunting with Nolan Twisselman. The Twisselman family has approximately 80,000 acres in the area. Accommodations are a very comfortable but simple guest house next to Nolan’s house.

Meals were simple good food with ample portions. Breakfast was toast and cereal, eggs if we had asked for it. Lunch was sandwiches with deli cold cuts, chips, and fruit. Dinner was game meat, a starch, and salad.

On the first morning of the hunt; we headed off the flats in the truck up into the hills (as you see in the first photo). We stopped at several places to glass. We saw a few deer and at one point kicked up some pigs while we were driving from vantage point to vantage point. We came around a corner and there up on a knob, across a steep draw, about ½ mile away was a group of about 9 cow elk and an immature bull. The rut ends by September here.

We stopped and glassed them for a moment and then backed off by looping around to the south about a ¼ of a mile while getting behind two little knife ridges which formed a nice draw. Using the first ridge as cover, we walked a short distance along the second ridge to a viewing vantage point and the elk were still there. I lasered them at 892 yards so were pretty much back to where we started from distance wise . So I checked my drop chart for my 308 win, slung up really tight off hand, held 14 ft over her back and touched one off, and the big cow dropped in her tracks.

THE END.

Just kidding but I couldn’t resist.

We then slipped off the second ridge down into the draw picking are way forward. About every 100 yards or so, we would sneak up the slope and peak over the edge of the near ridge at the top of the draw to check to see if the elk were still there. The elk had not move but there was a lookout cow who kept staring in our direction. At about 500 yards out we identified a big juniper that looked promising for a place to shoot from. We continued to pick our way forward in the bottom of the draw and using the range finder determined that the juniper was probably 200 yards from the elk.
We moved up the slope using a combination of crawling and crouch walking to get the juniper between us and the elk. I then went forward on my own and moved up to the big juniper. I peaked around the cornered and lasered the elk at 235 yards. I had crossed sticks and could have taken a sitting shot but decided to crawl forward about 40 more yards to a nice little bush. So I infantry crawled my fat butt forward pushing my rifle (Kimber 84m, 308 win, Zeiss Conquest, 165 grn GMXs) ahead of me on jacket to a nice bush that sat on a tiny little bump in the earth. I waited a minute for my heart to slowdown. I found the lookout cow in the scope she was quartering to me at a pretty good angle and I put the crosshairs inside her shoulder and fired.

I heard the bullet hit and she hunched up and lunged forward and moved up hill behind some junipers. The other elk got up out of their beds and starting milling around startled and confused but not running off.

I waived my buddy Mark Nelson up to my position as two of the started cows to move downhill towards us and not up and away. Mark moved up to me in a crouch. Got over the custom Home Depot bamboo short cross sticks and shot his cow with his 35 Whelen at a distance of about 140 yards. She lurched and kicked and dropped out of sight moving a little further downhill towards the road.

Mark walked to where he had last seen his cow and immediately found her and I went up to find mine. She had probably been down for 5 or 7 minutes by now if not more. I walked up hill with Nolan our guide and Nolan spotted her down next to a juniper. As I approached her she jumped up and bolted down hill. Clearly bleeding from her mouth and an exit wound. I couldn’t shoot because she was running straight towards where I had last seen Mark and then she disappeared in the brush and down the slope. I then saw Mark off to my left and moved down hill to look for her.

I didn’t go 40 yards and she was laying under a brush pile alive but clearly spent so I finished her off with a neck shot. Well two, I missed the first one from a distance of 10 ft.

Autopsy revealed the bullet hit the shoulder (so a little further back then I was aiming by about 3 inches), I was aiming for inside the shoulder, angled backward, then punched through the ribs damaging the near side lung, cutting an artery, and traversing the front of the stomach and exiting the otherside. She was dead just didn’t know it and had some fight in her. The bald spot on her hide is from the drag down the hill she had a very health coat.


The pig story...

We were set up on a knob in the rolling hills above the harvested barley fields.

About 6:45 am a sounder of about 15 pigs came through the first little set of hills surrounding the barley fields.

At about 600 yards they stopped and froze. The wind was in our favor they just sensed something wasn't right. I don't believe pigs can see 600 yards and we were quiet.

The pigs veered off to our left and went to put a small hill between us and them. So we hopped back in the truck and tried to head them off at where we expected them to be. As usual pigs cover more ground than you think they do and when we saw them they were 200 yards past us.

So we diverted around again to try to get way ahead of them. We thought we did. Nolan killed the engine we got out and the pigs crested the rise not 40 yards from us and scattered. Some running away, some veering left, some veering right.

Mark made about a 35 yard running shot through the shoulders and of course...I stunk the joint up missing with three shots.

We confirmed Mark's pig was down for the count and then headed off to find the group.

We saw the group...of course 800 yards farther than we would have expected but then I got a glimpse of Whitey trailing the group by several hundred yards.

We manuvered into position and I tried a couple of shots as he scampred away at 200 yards...of course I missed.

Then we identifed a spot where Whitey would likely pass through and got in front of him. Whitey crested a little rise and spotted us at about 50 yards and decided he had enough. He basically just looked at me straight on and kept coming.

I don't know if I would call it a full charge but he just kept coming with determination and I shot him in the head at about 20 yards.

This boar was not blond he was almost white.














First time I ever shot a whitey...

Excellent story guys!

I've been on two DIY NW Colorado Elk Hunts before (hence my screen name and avatar)

I was just interested in seeing what yall thought about the guided cow or bull elk hunts.

I'll scan and upload some of the photos I have later....


Public Land Northwest Colorado, 1st Season

330 Inch Bull




I must say, that NorthWest Colorado Elk hunting is my FAVORITE! I only wish I had gotten Mule deer tags, as the Mule Deer were dumb as dirt and each year I could have nailed a Giant.

Justin

quote:

Originally posted by Buglemintoday:
Curious to know what your opinions were/who you went with!-

I went once with Jack Hooker from Ovando MT, nice hunt for reasonable money. That was awhile ago, haven't gone on a guided hunt since. His son seemed like he'd take over the business but I don't know if he did.

quote:

Originally posted by Rob1SG:
I've done both Cow and Bull with this outfitter they are one of Cabelas. However, I just called them. I did the Cow first to see what I was getting into. They have over 100,000 arces under lease in NW Colorado and you can hunt from Sept-Dec.Outfitter-Good, Food-Good, Low Camp-Slept in a double wide trailer with hot showers, and Guides-Great for bull hunt. I've done two cow hunts the first guide was OK the second was much better.First time out 3X1 just put us on a ridge then used the bull hunters to move the elk our way. Second time 1X1 was more like the bull hunt we rode Mules up high and hunted hard. Sucess 100% two cows and a small 5X6 Bull in three yrs. I hunted late around Thanksgiving each time.Out of all the times I have been there only one person (82 yrs old with a 243 who shot at several cows) didn't fill their tag this includes Bulls,Deer, and Cows with up to 15 people in camp each time.You can check their wedsite at www.elkhornoutfitters.com

Approximately what are their hunt costs with elkhorn outfitters?

Bugle
who scored that elk at 330??? I don't think its anywhere near that but pics might be VERY deceiving. Congrats on the DIY hunt though, any bull is a good one

Jarrod, I think I paid $1500 which included lodging,food. The license was extra but was purchased at elkhorn as they are a Ranching for Wildlife place. Rob