Co first rifle gmu24 report
- Thread starter huntfishcamp
- Start date
Biscuit Hunter
New member
Congrats, it's great to see all of the smiles. Crazy that it was cold enough to freeze up your firing pin, it's still tee shirt weather here in AZ, at least during the day... Maybe use graphite instead of regular gun oil? Did the snow just manage to penetrate to the internals of the bolt? I have zero experience hunting where it's truly cold, and I'd rather not learn that lesson first-hand...
Mudranger1
Well-known member
- Joined
- Jun 30, 2010
- Messages
- 2,855
Very nice!
dzlfarmboy
Member
Did you see many elk? If so what elevation. We went out sat and today and saw a lot of hunters and a couple cows on a south facing uncovered hill at Indian creek. Good bit of snow from 10k-11k Still have a week left so were looking for the elk. In town for the night.
Ghostrider
Member
- Joined
- Oct 5, 2012
- Messages
- 66
sounds like you guys had a great time. thats what its all about. nice bull you guys took, to bad about your firing pin. Ive been in some pretty cold weather and I'll use some dry graphite spray but just a real light coat. Seems to work pretty well. Ive also used this stuff called kroil and its some pretty good stuff.
Congats again on your bull
Congats again on your bull
huntfishcamp
New member
Bulls we saw were 10k feet and up, we got to peaks almost 11k feet and saw lots of sign, snow depth didnt seem to stop them. We talked to others lower who said the elk were herded up and lots of them, 8k foot range. We just decided to hunt what we scouted, maybe could have done better lower, who knows. All in all a good time minus the firing pin issue!
huntfishcamp
New member
Couple pics from our CO season one hunt. The Peak we are standing on is about 11K feet, snowstorm is on. It was only about 10' wide at the top with steep drops on each side. Lots of snow, one buddy had snowshoes, which helped him a lot. I had to follow in several areas that were waist deep in the bottom of drainages. A great time! The best part is doing months of homework and planning, finally picking a spot, drawing the tags, then getting up there and actually SEEING ELK! Fyi the dates are not correct on the pics.
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huntfishcamp
New member
Finally a chance to sit down and chat about our hunt. None of us have hunted CO before, all non res (KS ND and MN). I was the trip planner so to speak, i picked the area based on harvest reports and talking to a game biologist. 5 of us drew season 1 rifle tags, 4 bull one cow. A 6th buddy joined us last minute for fun, sure glad he did. We arrived Wed afternoon after an all nighter, just patchy snow. Camp up and wood cut, we scouted thurs and fri and the snow kept coming and coming. Saturday opener found us all picking different spots. I saw a bull and 2 cows a thousand yrds off coming out of an aspen grove while two hunters went in. At 9am opening day my cousin says hes on his bulls blood trail and might need help. Suspected gut shot....not good. Well we all meet back at camp after dark and the bull is still at large. No other elk down. The wind wasnt right for tracking it anymore and we are waiting until morning. Sunday before light 3 of us head to post meadows, 3 head to locate the bull. It was shot 2 miles below camp, found alive .25miles below camp, cousin quickly put it out and they deboned, packed it to camp in 2 hrs.
Monday was memorably frustrating. On the way in after legal light we had a bull cross in front of us on the trail, 60 yrds but no time to shoot and couldnt tell if it was legal anyways. Mu buddy learned running in snow shoes is not a good idea. We tracked it for an hr or so and found a cool meadow it had crossed. In that meadow, with Snow and wind like ive never seen before, I waited while my buddy continued pursuit. Within 20min I had a legal bull come out, same direction but just below where we came from, at 47 yrds and my firing pin froze, just dented the primer! To say i was FURIOUS is an understatement. I seriously thought i had forgotten to put a round in the chamber. Well after the fact i tried wringing alcohol from lense wipes down the firing pin hole, used a lighter to try to dry it out, dry fired a few times, but finally decided to go back to camp to dissasemble and clean and lube w break-free. Huge lesson learned there.
At 10am or so a Buddy w a cow tag hit a cow and with another winter storm bearing down on us, we tracked from 11am to 4pm, had to give up after blood trail quit and tracks filled up w snow, and it went up and over a mtn peak and back down a STEEP grade, and it was still taking 6' jumps over logs. We all felt sick to our stomachs and noone wanted to give up but we all finally agreed this cow wasnt going down. That was a tough decision to walk away from the area.
The rest of the trip found us putting on miles thru now knee deep snow, we had several close encounters with cows (of course except our cow tag buddy, not sure he would have even shot again though) but no more bulls. It was our first CO elk hunt, my third elk hunt and though we had good success in MT, the price is right in CO and far more scenic and better experience overall IMO!
Monday was memorably frustrating. On the way in after legal light we had a bull cross in front of us on the trail, 60 yrds but no time to shoot and couldnt tell if it was legal anyways. Mu buddy learned running in snow shoes is not a good idea. We tracked it for an hr or so and found a cool meadow it had crossed. In that meadow, with Snow and wind like ive never seen before, I waited while my buddy continued pursuit. Within 20min I had a legal bull come out, same direction but just below where we came from, at 47 yrds and my firing pin froze, just dented the primer! To say i was FURIOUS is an understatement. I seriously thought i had forgotten to put a round in the chamber. Well after the fact i tried wringing alcohol from lense wipes down the firing pin hole, used a lighter to try to dry it out, dry fired a few times, but finally decided to go back to camp to dissasemble and clean and lube w break-free. Huge lesson learned there.
At 10am or so a Buddy w a cow tag hit a cow and with another winter storm bearing down on us, we tracked from 11am to 4pm, had to give up after blood trail quit and tracks filled up w snow, and it went up and over a mtn peak and back down a STEEP grade, and it was still taking 6' jumps over logs. We all felt sick to our stomachs and noone wanted to give up but we all finally agreed this cow wasnt going down. That was a tough decision to walk away from the area.
The rest of the trip found us putting on miles thru now knee deep snow, we had several close encounters with cows (of course except our cow tag buddy, not sure he would have even shot again though) but no more bulls. It was our first CO elk hunt, my third elk hunt and though we had good success in MT, the price is right in CO and far more scenic and better experience overall IMO!
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