Great work, Dawgdad! This has got to be a confidence builder. the post on the duplex reticle can be effective for BDC. Will you be deciding on a primary rifle and a backup?

Ballistics on the 300 WM with the Berger 190's are far superior to the 30-06 180gr. Partitions so that will be the primary and the 06 the back up. But as Townsend Whelen or some one like him once said, the 30-06 is never a bad choice... there was a Ram silhouette at 500 and before shooting on paper with the 30-06 I lined up the bottom circle on it and knocked it over with a center shot. That was a confidence booster....

I shot my son's Rem 700 about the same way. 2 shots at 100 then 1 at 200-300-400-500. With his Zeiss scope I was a bit high and again missed the wind off the paper to the right but still would have been in the lungs of an elk.

Here is the 30-06 -1, 2 at 100 3 at 200 - 4 and 5 at the bottom edge of the paper........ 300 and 400.... decided to use the BDC circles for 500 - shot the ram steel then shot 6 here. I went back to 300 later and used BDC circle and center hit that as well.

Upper left target....I had my Model 7 Predator .243 and took a shot at that diamond from 200 yards..... dead coyote....

I also have been working out the back county camp pack... tent, pillow sleeping bag, two meals and plenty of room for more stuff. A smaller pillow, smaller chair would be the only changes I would make from that side.



I used this little dome tent for this trip but I have a USMC two man and a Coleman 4 man for the Colorado trip.




I bought a Jet Boil and some of the Mountain Home meals... talk about the easy button. water boils in under 2 minutes and a filling meal in a bag... Bourbon and Cigars...well... just because I can.



My next jaunt will be to the Shawnee forest to Bow hunt white tail for three days but I will take the ATV in a trailer and do a shake down on that part of the gear hauling as well. Damn water is the heaviest thing I carry. I have life straw bottles to fill on the go but I still want a few gallons of bottled stuff for cooking and just in case...

FYI its looking like a early cold, wet and snowy winter. We just had a crazy storm blow through dropping major snow across our state. This kind of snow should be late Nov, not Sept. Make sure you bring along tire chains, shovel and a jack.

Our ML deer hunt starts Wed, can't wait!


-DallanC

Side note, you can get those slippery roll up kids snow sleds for winter time, if there is any kind of snow you can strap a pack to it, or elk quarter and slide it along alot easier than carrying it.

Soemthing like this:

www.amazon.com/gp/prod...tk00164-20


-DallanC

I have a sled ordered. I have been looking at longer range forecasts and they are showing 40-65 temp ranges.... but they have been wrong before... I will need to buy some chains.

OK - So I ate a tag sandwich.... but i learned a whole lot about elk hunting in the process.

Its the execution that is the fun part. Glad you enjoyed your hunting trip, Dawgdad.

We got to the Mesa the Thursday night before the Saturday opener for 2nd rifle season. This was our home for the first few days.

The view wasn’t too bad….

We scouted the area on Friday and put about 9 miles and 1100 feet of elevation change on our boots.
We had good sign and a plan for opening day.
We watched this area for elk on the move when the shooting started and with hunters moving in the woods..



No luck there so we dropped over the face of the Mesa to try and catch a bull moving up or down the face.



This was the typical slope we were traversing over the faces.


ON day two we hunted several open parks like we would a white tail deer.

We actually saw a large number of decent sized Mule deer during the hunt. And a porcupine and coyotes and a bunch of birds I had never seen or heard before.
The crows were mimicking the sounds of other birds too.

There was enough hunting pressure in the open areas that we pushed deep into the off trail areas looking for the bachelor bulls on the third day.

We packed up the tent and moved a couple of miles deeper into the Mesa.
We started using the ATV to get us some more distance up the trail before dropping off and into the thick stuff.

Much of what we were in was the aspens and pine blowdowns or dark timber.



We would get up early and have a hot breakfast courtesy of a
Jet Boil and Mountain Home freeze dried foods.

Then get about 2-3 miles in away from the trails. John has the ON-X hunting app and we used that to point us to the less traveled areas. Always arriving well before sunrise. Venus was still visible and bright as could be.



Hunting with a Marine Infantry Captain I learned how to hump quickly and quietly and how to dress as not to sweat and chill.

It took me a couple of days as he was always moving faster than I was used to but I finally landed on : Base layer un-tucked, wind shell un-zipped, 45 pound pack with all other layers inside – Go!...

This was the only way I would not get sweaty and then chilled moving into the hunting spot for the day.

We would stay out all day and snack on trail mix, cliff bars and Jerky. A 2 liter Camelback with water and a Nalgene bottle with electrolyte replacement fluids kept us hydrated.



We would head back in the dark getting to camp about 2000 most nights.

Another Mountain home meal and into the sleeping bag to do it all again the next day.

We covered quite a bit of territory and found a couple of groups of elk cows and spike bulls but never got on the bachelor bull group.

We saw a lot of bear scat and this paw in the mud too.



Another cool discovery was walking up on a beaver pond.
There were two lodges on this one.



We had a blast together and I think I even gained some respect in the kid’s eyes as I was able to hang with him all week and was not the reason we ever slowed down. This was the weekly total on my Garmin watch app and does not include the 9 miles we did scouting on Thursday prior.



You cant say we did not try to find the bachelor group.. 64 miles in 8 days..



As the trip reached its sunset we were already talking about next year and what to do differently. - like have a cow tag and a mule deer tag in our pockets too since that is what we saw the most of.

Thanks to all of you who chimed in with tips and advice. We were well prepared, knew what to expect and all of the gear performed as expected. Until next year....

Mate...64 miles in 8 days is hardcore stomping. Your Pup has every reason to be proud of you.

You did everything right and everything you could, it’s just the Elk who didn’t play the game.

Next year you will have that much more experience that you can draw on to help your hunt.

Thanks for posting about your adventure. Love the pictures and description. Glad you are looking forward to the next hunt.

Beautiful country, great pictures. Yup, thats all grade A elk habitat. Elk harvest success rate for general season in my state is only 14%, most people realize how hard it can be.

Glad you guys were safe, wish it had come together for you though.


-DallanC

Dawgdad wrote:

OK - So I ate a tag sandwich.... but i learned a whole lot about elk hunting in the process.

I did the same four years running but as you say; there's a lot learned even when you don't tag out.
The ridges covered in oak scrub looks just like parts of GMU 751 where I hunted.
We named one in particular "Cardiac Ridge" due to its particular steepness on both sides & having to come out the way we went in.
Once I get retired in January, I'll be attacking my 90lb of accumulated lard & back to the fitness needed to get up into CO for elk once more - probably 2019 (I'm planning a plains game hunt in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe for then too, so longs as recent events don't lead to instability...).