Here are some pics. of the bulls we shot with Garvey Brothers Outfitting in Nucla,CO. owned by Stan and Doylene Garvey

Hunt consisted of myself, one of my older brothers (Dean), and 2 friends, Richard and Reuben.

The hunt was conducted Oct. 23rd - 27th as an elk only hunt.

Stan also offers mule deer hunts (7 - 8 pref. points) and mtn. lion. Both of which he takes some dandies. Landowner tags are also available.

Accomodations: Great. They built a new sleeper cabin a couple of years ago and we got lucky enough to get that. A couple of the other hunters stayed in the main cabin, while the rest stayed in heated wall tents.

Food: Excellent. Homecooked meals and sack lunches during the day. Meals were usually every morning at 5 am in the main cabin. Stan's wife Doylene is an excellent cook. Even got homemade pies (3 diff. ones to choose from 1 night)! If you ever were hungry, it was your own fault.

Guides: Couldn't get any better. Guides were Stan's son Dustin, His brother Joe and a younger man named Doug. The hunt was set up as a 2x1 but the amount of hunters and guides dictate this. There was never a situation where there more than 2 hunters with a guide. Some days, you went 1x1.
Stan's policy is that you don't have the same guide every day. He feels that it is more fair if the guides switch hunters every day.

Amount/Quality of game: Excellent. Saw elk everyday. Not uncommon to see 10-15 bulls a day. We saw close to 200 elk on day 4.

Day 1:
Our friend Richard started off by taking this nice 6 x 6. Even though 2 of the tines were broken, it's still a great trophy.



Day 2:
My brother Dean took his nice 6 x 6 late morning.



Day 3:
Bad weather - rain, sleet, snow. Nothing taken today


Day 4:
The guides had decided that we would start out at the top of the mountain and work our way down towards camp. We started off early (bkfst. was at 4:30 am) and drove the 2 hrs. to the top of the mountain. As soon as daylight broke, there were elk everywhere. We looked at approx. 10 - 15 bulls before 9 am. At 9:30, my guide Dustin all of a sudden said "here's your bull". Through the spotting scope, we could see a big 6 x 6 feeding along with a smaller bull. Dustin said that the bull would probably bed down, so we had better get moving, as it was about a 3 hr. walk to get into position.
I thought "no way"........it didn't look that far. He assured me that it was. He was right, and then some. It took us 4 hrs. of steady walking to get in position for a stalk. We were lucky.....the bull was still bedded, but in thick brush. We closed the gap to approx. 400 yds. when all of a sudden, we jumped a small bull. I thought this was it......the small bull was going to spook my bull and i didn't have a shot !! Luckily, the small bull trotted off in the opposite direction. The stalk was back on. We snuck our way though and closed the distance to 250 yds. We could see the bull still bedded along with another smaller bull bedded higher. All of a sudden, the smaller bull got up, then mine. We hurried and found an opening for a shot. My bull got out of his bed, and started through the brush. I pulled my gun up and took the shot. The bull dropped in his tracks. A beautiful 6 x 7 with good mass.



Day 5:
With 3 out of 4 tags full, it was Reuben's turn. Not that he hadn't seen any bulls (he had seen plenty), just with the amount of bulls we had spotted, he was holding out for a bigger bull. In the end, he took a nice 5 x 5. Not really what he wanted, but after all those days and all those miles, this was a well earned bull !!

Nice job for a very suceesful hunt. Congrats on some good bulls.

Nice bulls. Congrats to all of the lucky hunters!!!

Nice job! I was hunting above you guys same season. If you think the weather was bad Monday down below, you should have been on top!

DC

We were on top. Went up there right away in the morning to try it, but it was hell. Winds were gusting close to 45 mph i bet !!! I actually saw 2 other hunter up there in the same stuff (they didn't see us).

We wound up going back down to camp for awhile, dried off, and then hunted the lower elevations.

Very nice bulls. Going 4 for 4 isn't too shabby either.

Man-O-Man Brett, What a great Hunt with excellent results. Really like the flick of your brother with the HUGE smile. It says a lot about his thoughts concerning his Bull. Excellent flicks.

What a hunt!!!!!!!!!!

Great report and great trophies. If you don't mind me asking, how much for a 2x1 hunt?

Well done y'all! Congrats on a great hunt and a great time!

Bob

I talked with Stan last night. They charge $5000.00 for a two on one hunt. Here's my problem. I've killed several bulls including a 317 and a 311 bull. I really want to kill a bull over 350. I understand there are lots of 300 inch bulls in that unit. I know it's hunting but, do I want to spend $7000.00 to kill a 300" bull maybe with a small chance at a 350 kind of bull? By the way, the place we hunt in Wyoming (killed 317 & 311 bulls) Payed $3000 and $2500. First hunter there last year killed a 380 - 390 kind of bull.

Did you talk to Stan about the muzzleloader hunts?

Dustin (his son) said that bigger bulls are taken then. I think you would have a good chance at a 350" bull during muzzleloading and with 18 pts., i think you would maybe draw.

Are you talking gross or net (on the 350)?

As far as other outfitters in are 61,i think it's Stan and one other outfitter that do most of the business. Stan's advantage is that he has better access to the best public land though some small tracts of private land.

During our hunt, one of our guides was telling us that his father actually owned that other outfitting company. His father sold it and the new owners didn't know what they were doing. Sounds like it got sold again and same thing is happening!!!
In fact...........Stan used to work for the outfitter way back. That's how he got into the outfitting business.

I honestly don't think that you'll find any better area than what Stan has in unit 61 as far as size goes (on the bulls).

Didn't talk about muzzleloader. My hunting partner will not go with a muzzleloader. Don't want to spend all that money on a guided hunt to kill a 300 inch bull when I can do it in Wyoming every few years for half the money. When we first started applying for elk tags in Co. we were going to hunt a ranching for wildlife ranch. Maybe we can go "do it yourself" and find someone to pack the animals out?

Your brother's smile tells the story.

Good looking bulls Congrats