I took some time this past weekend to get up into the high country, even though I will not be able to enjoy it this year. My friends were scouting Elk at an elevation ranging between nine and eleven thousand feet. The area is commonly known as “The Muddy Slide.”
This is in Routt County, near Lynx Pass, it is one heck of a hike from the areas where you can set a camp up to get to the parks, and black timber where the Wapiti like to hang out.It is however, well worth the effort to do so. Just a short distance away is the Gore Pass area, that is most often inundated with road hunters.That is fine with me. It is also probably the single largest factor in why so often the Elk harvest is around twenty percent success. Over the years, my friends and I have averaged closer to forty percent success harvesting Elk by all legal methods. It would be even higher if we didn’t regularly pass on shots.
Bottom line? The Elk are moving, and the rut is in it’s early stages. The guys were all still out when I made it into camp. I used a diaphragm to blow out a few cow mews, and was rewarded by the sound of not one, but three young bulls that were off in the black timber.Prime time is still about a month away, so this was a very good sign.
I will be up in Wyoming when the big bulls begin to roar across my beloved Colorado Rockies. Indeed, with Wyoming taking a year to establish residency it could be two years before I can hunt again. Such are the vagaries of life. It is all well and good though, areas fifteen and sixteen have been very good to me over the years.
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