Colorado Elk Hunt - October 2005
Joe and I had talked about hunting Elk for years. We decided this past summer that since we were passing up our annual Alaska pilgrimage, we would try to find somewhere to hunt Elk. Since we had missed the deadlines for submitting for draw-only tags and Colorado offers over-the-counter Elk tags - our choice was to hunt somewhere in Colorado!
Now the decision was - do we go it on our own or find an outfitter? We were planning on hunting public land on our own until I came upon Mike Gray and Colorado Big Game Adventures. Mike and his crew run an outstanding hunting camp on 8000 acres of private land surrounded by National Forest. Mike runs a traditonal hunting camp - great food and comraderie. It isn't a typical 1x1 guided type of hunt - Mike and his guides maintain numerous tripod stands and blinds covering Elk crossings, water holes and bedding areas. Mike and his guides are there to provide as little or as much help as a hunter requires. Mike provides a great opportunity to enjoy an Elk hunt in the Colorado mountains for hunters of all abilities - we had several hunters in camp that were 70 yrs old and having a wonderful time! We saw plenty of Elk, passing up several shots at smaller bulls and cows early in the week.
Joe and I originally planned to hunt the 2nd rifle season as the tags are over-the-counter until Mike called and informed me that there were left over 1st season draw tags so we opted to hunt first season.
