Might should have sprung for that Mule Deer tag 😑. literally the only animal on the mountain we can’t shoot lol
Colorado Hunting 2024
BEAR HUNTING
Bear hunting is a little different in that it requires a lot of trigger control. You can not just throw up and shoot or you could make a costly legal mistake…or find yourself somewhat disappointed.
Sows with cubs obviously are not legal or ethical targets and bears are perhaps the hardest species of game animal to judge for age and trophy quality. You really have to control your emotions and watch them for a while before you decide to shoot.
They ALL look big when you first spot them, but there are some signs to look for when judging age and size.
First look at the ears. If a bear appears to have large ears it is most likely a juvenile bear. If it's belly is far off the ground and it's legs appear long that for sure is a juvenile bear. A short and dull looking coat is also a sign of a young bear. Mature bears tend to have longer glossier coats, short looking ears and big blocky heads. Also mature bears tend to be much fatter and just like their human counterparts they walk with a waddling lumbering gate.
If you look at the bear in the video you can see he exhibits all the characteristics of a young bear including a youthful naivety that prevents him from understanding that you do not just linger around during hunting season. I hope the young fella makes it a couple more years and puts on a couple hundred more pounds.
However, if a good tender bear roast is what you are after then this one would have been perfect!
For 31 years we have lived in this house and raised five children in this house. The spot will now be a parking lot for Sorghum Hollow Processing and Taxidermy. It’s time for new beginnings…
Just wanted to give a shout out to Trent Junkin at TJ’s Landscaping. We recently had them do some mulching on ourproperty and I can say it was worth every penny. It is the best way to clear land without compromising your top soil, and having to burn or bury tons of brush tops and stumps. What was a useless impenetrable thicket can be turned into a beautiful park, green field, or building sight in just a few hours. Lance Atkinson is one of the best operators I have seen and he knows how to use the machinery to its fullest potential which will save you, the land owner, time and money in the long run. If you have a piece of property, large tracts or small, that needs mulching, dozer work, or other landscaping give Trent a call. 205-412-7973
Our new breeder buck Randy Loves Marshmallows and Animal Crackers lol
The Honey Hole! Hunting is not the only thing to do in the mountains. There are trout in them thar hills! Some areas of the west have abundant fishing opportunities and a few of them require a little searching to find. After fishing some other lakes with minimal success my friend Bill and I decided one evening to hike into a lake that had been recommended as having some decent tiger trout and cutthroats. It was not too far off the beaten path so we caught some grasshoppers, grabbed our poles and off we went. Now neither one of us had ever caught a tiger trout, but that was about to change, It turns out this little lake was full of them as well as some decent cutthroat and brookies. Even though for some reason it seemed I could hardly land a fish it still turned out to be some of the best trout fishing I have experienced. I would almost go back there just to fish that little lake. It kinda salvaged the trip. But next time I will take a net!
wilderness survival tip 137
First contact
With only a few days left in the season I was almost ready to throw in the towel. I had not heard or seen an elk on the public land in over three weeks of hunting. I decided to give it one more try and attempted to hike into a nice looking patch of timber below a long rocky ridge. As usual the blow downs made the way almost impossible and I was about to turn around when I finally heard what I had traveled 1400 miles to hear.. a real bull elk bugling above me. That was all the motivation I needed.
The bull sounded like he was about 400 yards away, but it took me a full two hours to cross the blow down zone, jumping log to log, trying to make as little noise as possible, Luckily, he was in the mood to keep talking and I finally managed to close the distance to less than 100 yards. I was in a race against the mountain thermals that would soon reverse as the morning air warmed, taking my scent directly to him.
I could now hear the bull walking above me and I quickly found a place to set up and begin calling. I had to take a minute to get my breath under control as the climb had taken its toll on my oxygen levels. Once i felt confident I was not going to die I let out a couple of soft cow chirps. Immediately I heard the sound of crashing hooves and breaking limbs. I readied myself thinking the bull was charging in but soon realized he and the whole herd were running the opposite direction. This is often the danger of calling on heavily hunted grounds. After more than three weeks of open season these elk have heard everything that can be thrown at them, and they are having none of it!
Disappointed In the outcome but still elated that I had actually found some elk after all these days I turned and headed back down the mountain to fight my way back through the deadfalls and decided I would use spot and stalk methods only from here on out should I get another opportunity.
My friend Bill Neime from Ohio who had come out to hunt the last week of the season
Took a break from the hunting and did some fishing, and unlike the hunting the fishing was actually successful!
The Dead Falls
The alarm went off at 5:am as planned. I crawled out of my sleeping bag and stepped outside looking up into a pitch black abyss. Gone was the sparkaling mat of stars that had been blanketing the early morning sky on all my previous days of hunting. Though it had rained the evening before and into the night, it had ceased by morning...oh but I sensed a trap!
"This is a set up" I said to myself knowingly, and quickly crawled back into my still warm sleeping bag. About an hour later it started to rain and continued to do so for the next five hours!
Warm and dry in my sleeping bag, I smiled as I knew at least this one time I had beaten the mountain. "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me" as the old saying goes.
But I am not always able to so easily catch the mountains in their trickery. And yes I do believe it is trickery. I do not think they like you being here and they lay many a snare for those who are inexperienced, or who might commit a single absent minded misstep. My grandfather used to say that "a horse would live for 30 years just for the chance to kill you once" ...but I believe a mountain will last for a millennia just for that same chance. They can be dangerous places even, for those wise to their tricks as I recently learned once again.
It was my first morning hunting and I had climbed quite a distance when I decided to turn back down towards the road where my car was parked. On my decent I began to encounter an area of severe dead falls. To get around it required that I back track up the mountain and attempt a different route down. From where I stood It appeared to thin out and become a little more transversable further down the ridge. This was the trap, cleverly laid and well played by a cunningly devious mountain side. I should have seen it coming!
Now for those who don't know what is happening in the western mountains, there has been over the past few decades a devistating beetle infestation that in some areas ha
Hero & Logic
The philosopher Seneca once said that “We suffer more in imagination than we do in reality”. It appears Seneca must have done a lot of camping in bear country, because nowhere does that statement ring truer than on a backcountry hunting trip! It seems the things we fear the most become our reality if we allow it.
If you fear bears, that rustling outside the tent must be a bear, not a meddling fox. If you fear Bigfoot, that thing, throwing rocks at your tent, must be a big foot, not a pine squirrel, tossing down pinecones. And if you fear circus clowns, those oversized floppy red shoes sticking out from under the edge of the tent must be a creepy circus clown, not a blaze orange hunting vest and hat that fell behind a table!
A recent event brought back memories of a camp a few years ago when Josh, Jake, and I were elk hunting in Wyoming. At that time we would place our food cooler just outside the cook tent at night to ensure that it stayed cold. That night, we had no more than all gone to bed in our respective tents when I heard one of the boys rummaging through the cooler. A bit annoyed that they had waited until everyone had gone to bed to get a snack; although, I still sympathized, since hunting in the mountains, can make you ravenous. At first, I said nothing, then realized that not even a hungry elk Hunter could dig through a cooler that aggressively! So I curiously got out of my cot and peaked out the tent doors into the inky blackness. There, just feet away, I saw something even inkier and blacker, half in and half out of my cooler! I yelled at it, trying to sound bigger than I am, and thankfully, the inky black thing ran off!
I yelled to the boys that there had just been a bear in our cooler, and when they came out to investigate the damage, they said they had heard something walking up the creek to our camp just moments before. We all then tried to salvage what was left of our food, and spent the next 24 hours somewhat excited that w
