ddd-shooter
Senior Member
As promised to some in the bear forum, here’s my 2024 Colorado trip summary and a few pics which don’t do it justice in any way.
It had been ten years since I was last in the Rockies. Long overdue for any self respecting outdoorsman. As my dad had always wanted to go and neither of us were getting any younger, we agreed this was our year. One final straw that tipped our decision making was 2024 was the final year of Colorado OTC.
Having lucked up and got a leftover tag in a unit I knew pretty well, my dad and my wife picked up their OTC elk tags for neighboring units and we all bought bear licenses for good measure. After accounting for travel, we would have 11 days to hunt, fish, and otherwise vacation. Our Colorado public land DIY hunt was underway!
For brevity sake, I’ll skip the many trailhead interactions with hunters, the moose and mule deer sightings, the bears we saw and the fishing we did. Suffice it to say, we were plum spoiled by every day we spent in the beautiful Rocky Mountains. These days we had 45 miles of foot travel, late nights, early mornings and a plethora of close calls with verbal and nonverbal elk.
Day 9 proved to be the day the good Lord blessed me with my first bull elk. Even better, my wife was with me again this morning. We had trudged up the mountain-worn out from the many miles elapsed already. Today would be another hill, another mile, another day of exertion and while we were trying to make the most out of every opportunity, we could feel our bodies trying to betray us but we were determined to not let apathy be the reason our tag went unfilled.
The day before, we had super close encounters with a group of elk in a thick area but were unable to close the deal. Back the next day in the same area, shortly after daylight a bull sounded off. I pray I never lose the exhilaration I feel in my spirit every time I hear an elk. With urging from my wife, I challenged him right back. Ten minutes later he walked into our set up (we hadn’t been sitting over this water hole/wallow five minutes). He closed the distance to 25, turned his head, and I felt it was time to draw. Unfortunately, he caught movement and started to trot away. My wife, the quick thinking lady she is, mewed at him perfectly. He trotted to 50 yards, stopped, and turned broadside to reevaluate the situation. That decision proved to be fatal. I settled in, and as I had done so often before in practice, hit the trigger; not quite knowing if my yardage was correct, or even if I had executed a good shot. The arrow hung in the air for what felt like 5 minutes. I watched as the lighted nock arced perfectly into the crease right behind the shoulder. I knew and my wife knew we had just killed a bull. He ran with fervent speed up the hill, but alas his energy had been drained by some event unknown to his instincts. A few seconds later, we heard him crash. He didn’t go 30 yards.
Instantly, I was beside myself. A lifelong dream fulfilled. Months of planning, dreaming, scheming, rucking, and shooting all had reached their payoff. I was on a high like no other. Seemingly from out of nowhere what had evaded us for a week and a half was suddenly over and done with in a minute. I was in awe. Literally. There was no way my feeble mind could comprehend or process the adrenaline and raw emotion of the moment. I had ALWAYS wanted to kill an elk. From childhood. As soon as I fell in love with archery, I knew I wanted to kill one with an arrow. I had done it. But I had not done it alone mind you; my dad being the main reason we took this trip this year and my wife constantly being by my side for the majority of the hunts. And God himself, who in his goodness saw fit to run a dumb young elk by some worn-out hunters from Georgia to display his redemptive nature to them.
We spent 7 hours in the field butchering and hauling meat to the truck. We were thankful for a nearby creek to cool the meat off. The following day thankfully was the only rain day of the trip and made for a perfect day to process meat. 7 more hours would go into that. Perhaps unsurprisingly, after all that work, no one was very keen to try to fill another tag and create more work for everyone. Content with a single filled tag, we left for home.
It had been ten years since I was last in the Rockies. Long overdue for any self respecting outdoorsman. As my dad had always wanted to go and neither of us were getting any younger, we agreed this was our year. One final straw that tipped our decision making was 2024 was the final year of Colorado OTC.
Having lucked up and got a leftover tag in a unit I knew pretty well, my dad and my wife picked up their OTC elk tags for neighboring units and we all bought bear licenses for good measure. After accounting for travel, we would have 11 days to hunt, fish, and otherwise vacation. Our Colorado public land DIY hunt was underway!
For brevity sake, I’ll skip the many trailhead interactions with hunters, the moose and mule deer sightings, the bears we saw and the fishing we did. Suffice it to say, we were plum spoiled by every day we spent in the beautiful Rocky Mountains. These days we had 45 miles of foot travel, late nights, early mornings and a plethora of close calls with verbal and nonverbal elk.
Day 9 proved to be the day the good Lord blessed me with my first bull elk. Even better, my wife was with me again this morning. We had trudged up the mountain-worn out from the many miles elapsed already. Today would be another hill, another mile, another day of exertion and while we were trying to make the most out of every opportunity, we could feel our bodies trying to betray us but we were determined to not let apathy be the reason our tag went unfilled.
The day before, we had super close encounters with a group of elk in a thick area but were unable to close the deal. Back the next day in the same area, shortly after daylight a bull sounded off. I pray I never lose the exhilaration I feel in my spirit every time I hear an elk. With urging from my wife, I challenged him right back. Ten minutes later he walked into our set up (we hadn’t been sitting over this water hole/wallow five minutes). He closed the distance to 25, turned his head, and I felt it was time to draw. Unfortunately, he caught movement and started to trot away. My wife, the quick thinking lady she is, mewed at him perfectly. He trotted to 50 yards, stopped, and turned broadside to reevaluate the situation. That decision proved to be fatal. I settled in, and as I had done so often before in practice, hit the trigger; not quite knowing if my yardage was correct, or even if I had executed a good shot. The arrow hung in the air for what felt like 5 minutes. I watched as the lighted nock arced perfectly into the crease right behind the shoulder. I knew and my wife knew we had just killed a bull. He ran with fervent speed up the hill, but alas his energy had been drained by some event unknown to his instincts. A few seconds later, we heard him crash. He didn’t go 30 yards.
Instantly, I was beside myself. A lifelong dream fulfilled. Months of planning, dreaming, scheming, rucking, and shooting all had reached their payoff. I was on a high like no other. Seemingly from out of nowhere what had evaded us for a week and a half was suddenly over and done with in a minute. I was in awe. Literally. There was no way my feeble mind could comprehend or process the adrenaline and raw emotion of the moment. I had ALWAYS wanted to kill an elk. From childhood. As soon as I fell in love with archery, I knew I wanted to kill one with an arrow. I had done it. But I had not done it alone mind you; my dad being the main reason we took this trip this year and my wife constantly being by my side for the majority of the hunts. And God himself, who in his goodness saw fit to run a dumb young elk by some worn-out hunters from Georgia to display his redemptive nature to them.
We spent 7 hours in the field butchering and hauling meat to the truck. We were thankful for a nearby creek to cool the meat off. The following day thankfully was the only rain day of the trip and made for a perfect day to process meat. 7 more hours would go into that. Perhaps unsurprisingly, after all that work, no one was very keen to try to fill another tag and create more work for everyone. Content with a single filled tag, we left for home.
