Help !!! Colorado Rifle Season 1st Time Hunting Elk.

Hello,
I recently got interested in chasing big game, so while I look a different places like Utah, Montana, We decided to Hunt Colorado, at first we were doing Bow season My buddy and I but after thinking for a very long time, we decided to do a rifle hunt. ( means we have better chances to bring something home(or at least we think)) so I know you guys won't give your private and secret spots but if i could ask for some directions as to where to go. we were thinking the Glenwood- Meeker Area because we look at the harvest data and seems like those were a higher success rate for the whole state. but We haven't been there. also we started looking at some Maps and its one thing to look at a computer screen than it is to actually be there.

Thanks in advance.!!!

I think you should reconsider bowhunting.You can learn A LOT from vocal elk and how the move and where they like to bed.Plus, getting a bull inside of 50 yards really gets blood pumping.I think they are much easier to hunt in tail end of bow season.Just hard to get that shot opportunity at times.If you want to gun hunt buy a few years of points for a 1st or 3rd season hunt.It will reduce some pressure.Third season is good if it has late dates for hope of snow cover.Put odds in your favor to locate bulls your first trip.Bowhunting they will be talking good,and snow cover in 3rd season will at least show you if your in the game with fresh tracks.Knowing your in the game helps with mentally keeping after it.If you do 1st season,look for a year with earliest dates to catch tail end of rut.And get out there 2-3 days early to scout and get acclimated to the elevation
When basing your hunt unit off success rates you also need to look at how much private is in the unit.The area your looking at has A LOT of elk,so not a bad choice

There are probably a dozen threads about your question so read as many as you can but until you get out there and do some chasing it will be difficult to understand how to put that info into practice. Every hunt I go out I learn something new no matter how much research I do. Be prepared with 5 to 10 good spots that you want to check out as you may get there and there will be no sign or just too many hunters. Good Luck.

1st Rifle season sounds a lot better than 2nd or 3rd over the counter. As a non-resident with ZERO points, you can still draw for 1st Rifle Season in many units in Colorado. You don’t have to do a party application (someone else can give you more about party applications), but if you have a group of friends non-residents to Colorado, each one can do an application for the same unit and most likely you will get it. I’, talking about units which normally have several hundred tags allocated to peeps with ZERO points. If you don’t have access to the INSIDER by GoHunt, you should look into it, because you can do a search there for units with ZERO points for non-residents with high success rate lol lol, I love the INSIDER….

First you need to figure out what time of 1st Rifle Hunt you want to do. You want open terrain so you can glass more? Or you are going to hike 10 miles in away from roads and trails to set up camp??? After you decide what type of hunting you want to do for 1st Rifle season, then you can look into potential areas of Colorado. If you have any more specific questions, PM me bro, I have access to the INSIDER. – ColoradoHunter719

Check out some of the answers my thread recently with similar questions. https://onyourownadventures.com/hunttalk/showthread.php?286377-Hello-Colorado-in-2019!