Our Colorado backcountry elk campsite lies some eight miles from the trailhead. The remote setting makes this one of my most anticipated hunting adventures of the year.
October 07, 2024
By Aron Snyder
I've been elk hunting almost 35 years, and during that time, I’ve had some amazing adventures in the elk woods. Like most elk hunters, the vast majority of my hunting has taken place on public land using over-the-counter tags, though I have been fortunate to draw a few limited-entry units. A few years ago, my good friend South Cox, owner of Stalker Stickbows, asked me if I wanted to join him on a wilderness hunt, deep in the Colorado Rockies. This hunt normally takes several points to draw, but South had a line on some unit-wide landowner tags. I couldn’t say yes fast enough. We’ve now done this hunt several times, and it’s one of those adventures I dream about all year!
We’ve had great success on this hunt over the years, but in this article, I’d like to focus on our hunt from 2022. We started by getting packed in by some good friends and their horses and set up camp about eight miles from the trailhead. It was late in the day by the time we had camp ready, and elk had been screaming all around us as we worked. All that bugling made for a relatively sleepless night, as my mind was racing with a million thoughts about what tomorrow would bring.
We started our first morning of hunting with a grueling climb to the top of the area. Thankfully, the effort was worth it, and we had bugling bulls all around us. Our group of four chose to stay together that morning, so we had South, Mitch (he was calling), Cade the camera guy, and me. Trying to hunt elk with that many people can be problematic, but we worked well together and had multiple encounters over the course of the morning. South was shooting his longbow, and I was using a compound. So, South was up to bat first, with me having a little longer range if needed.
Our hunting area is steep, requiring some serious climbs to reach bugling bulls. But as our 2022 hunt proved, the payoff is worth the effort! Before the sun had even fully crested the eastern horizon, South had passed a small bull as we were working in on a true giant that would likely score in excess of 350 inches. Mitch and I were hanging back, calling for South, and he and I had a few smaller bulls come in on us as well. The big bull started to gather his harem of cows and move toward their bedding area in the north-facing timber before South could get close enough for a shot. With temperatures rising and thermals beginning to create swirling winds, we decided to back out and make a new game plan for the afternoon.
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Naptime’s Over! South’s game plan was simple and effective; take a nap and figure it out later! That sounded good to us, but I have trouble sleeping during the day. So, as everyone else slept, I just sat there listening to different bulls bugle. I noted the location of each bull and studied the terrain to determine which ones I thought we could successfully approach once the wind got more predictable.
We were on a bench a few hundred vertical feet below the highest ridge in the area and a few hundred vertical feet above the valley floor. It was a perfect position that put us right in the middle of all the elk action, and it wasn’t very long before I interrupted everyone’s nap. There was a hot bull directly below us, and it sounded like he was working up the mountain in our direction. I got a little excited and hit the cow call a few times to gauge his response. He pretty much kept doing what he was doing, but it was hard to tell if he was getting any closer. I don’t think South was super impressed. In fact, he asked me, “You think you’re going to call him all the way up here?”
I smiled and replied, “We were dumb enough to climb up here to kill an elk. So, he might be dumb enough to climb up here to mate!”
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The elk in our area were very vocal, and we had good success calling several bulls into bow range during the hunt. As it turned out, that bull didn’t keep climbing. However, between his screaming and my cow calls, we soon had a few other bulls in the area worked up. None of them were super close, but being in the middle of a scene like that is always exciting.
A couple minutes later, yet another bull sounded off less than 200 yards from our position. Listening to the bugle, we all guessed it came from a bedded bull, and although you can’t always tell the age of a bull by the sound of its bugle, we also agreed this one sounded mature.
With that, everyone laced their boots back up and we formed a plan. With the daytime wind now blowing uphill, and the bull being above us and to our right, South worked his way above me, thinking the bull would probably come straight across to catch our wind. When South got into position, Mitch started to cow call and I let out a bugle and started scraping a pine tree. This has worked well for me in the past, and from the look on South’s face, it was working just as good this time.
Just a few seconds after South turned back around, the bull let out an earth-shattering bugle and continued to do so until he was about 80 yards from us. At that point, I could hear him glunking, and he was doing that about every step. When I heard that sound, I knew we had him. I could only see parts of the bull, and from what I could see he looked pretty darn good. When he was about 20 yards out and broadside from South, I got the full picture. He was, in fact, a giant.
I had not nocked an arrow until he started glunking (I guess I was caught up in the moment) but figured I better, as elk don’t always follow the script, and he might not give South an opening that I might have. Anyway, he did give South a good, broadside shot, but it looked like the arrow sailed just under the bull. I wasn’t totally sure, but I came to full draw anyway. The bull jumped a couple times after the shot and angled downhill, toward me and Mitch. Right when I was getting ready to cow call, Mitch let one out and stopped the bull in its tracks. I’ve never been one to shy away from frontal shots, and this bull was facing dead at me at less than 20 yards. I felt good about the shot and let my arrow fly. It buried perfectly into the bull’s chest, and my arrow disappeared completely as the bull charged downhill. Within seconds, we heard the bull crashing down the mountain, and all I could think was, I sure hope South isn’t mad!
South being South, it seemed he was more excited than I was, and we quickly exchanged man hugs and went over to see what happened. South confirmed what I’d suspected; he did shoot just under the bull. It all happened so quickly it took a few minutes for everything to sink in. I wasn’t totally sure of the bull’s size, but I knew he was big and the memories from that encounter would be etched in my mind forever.
After a few minutes, we started blood trailing. It didn’t require much effort, as the blood trail was at least a foot wide and continued more or less unbroken to where the bull lay dead. We were in pretty steep country, and it looked like he’d rolled farther than he ran.
I didn’t really know how big the bull was until we walked up on it. The 350-class had a massive body to go with its impressive rack — easily the biggest elk I’ve ever had the good fortune to tag! When I first walked up on the bull, I made a comment about “ground growage” and that they usually shrink after the shot. From the looks of it, the bull would score more than 350 inches, and I was pumped! I’ve never really been a great trophy hunter, and the score of an animal, for me anyway, is as much about the people you’re with and the adventure you have as it is about the inches. So, having said that, this bull was a trophy by every definition and meaning for me.
We quickly discussed what we were going to do, and I told the crew to head back up the mountain and try to get back on that other bull while I broke my bull down and shuttled the meat, cape, skull and antlers to the trail. They helped me portion the bull, take a few photos and started with the initial breakdown. I really appreciated the help but let them know I was good to go, and they should get going while the elk were still cranking. They took off and I got down to business.
As it turned out, I probably should have had them stay and help me get the bull down to the trail, because doing it by myself was about all I could take. The terrain was much steeper than I anticipated, and I didn’t end up getting back until well after dark. As anyone who has shared this experience knows, the excitement of the day masked the pain very well. But that night, I was feeling it for sure!
You Can’t Steal Memories I had my friends come in with their horses a few days later to help me pack the bull out. This was a huge help, because as far as body size, this bull was the biggest I’d killed and was pushing 800-900 pounds. The pack went off without issue, and I drove through the night to get back home to my wife.
I was turned onto this productive elk-hunting area by my good friend South Cox, owner of Stalker Stickbows. We are proof that trad guys and compound guys can make great hunting partners! When I got back to my office a couple days later, I asked one of my employees if he minded boiling the skull for me while I was gone on my next hunt. He was more than happy to take on the task, and I thanked him for doing this. A few days after I’d left, I got a call from him that the rack had been stolen out of his yard. To say he was panicking would be an understatement.
I appreciated his concern and the effort he and others put forth in trying to recover the bull, but in truth I wasn’t all that worried about it. Yes, it was disappointing. But as I mentioned before, I’m not much of a trophy hunter. I told him things could be worse; I still had all the meat and memories, and that’s what matters most!