The hunt I’m going on this year is something I did two years ago.
I have an uncle who lives in Crested Butte, Colorado, and he’s been going to the same piece of land in the Gunnison National Forest for 17 years. There will be nine of us there. We’ll hunt elk for nine days.
It’s completely different than hunting in Florida.
PREPARE YOURSELF
The biggest challenge is going from 100 feet above sea level to camping at 9,000 feet and hunting at anywhere from 10,000 to 10,500 feet. The lungs don’t keep up.
It’s about being physically ready for it. As far as altitude sickness goes, I’ve never had a problem with the headaches. But toward the end of the hunt two years ago, I got really fatigued and lost my appetite — symptoms of altitude sickness. Even though I needed the calories and I wanted to eat, I couldn’t.
Before going into a hunt like this, you have to know that is what you may be dealing with. Take your time and drink plenty of fluids.
BIG KILLS
When you harvest an animal, it’s a challenge because they’re so big that you’ve got to dress them right on the spot, quarter them out and lug them back to camp. Sometimes, you have to leave it overnight because it’s too much to carry, even with multiple hunters.
The last time I was out there, my uncle and I shot elk on the same day.
Mine was at 10,400 feet and over a mile and one half from camp. We had to leave a lot of it on a game pole in the woods and go back up for it the next morning with sleds and backpacks. I had shot a small cow, and she was still probably almost 325 pounds. You can imagine what some of the bigger ones are like.
We carry the bare minimum because the hiking is strenuous, and you’ve probably got a 20-pound backpack between the water and game bags you need to have, knives and everything else. Your rifle is going to weigh anywhere from 7 to 10 pounds, depending on what you’re lugging around. And you certainly don’t want to get lost out there.
STAY AWARE
We had somebody who was lost on the first night of the hunt come into our camp. He was fortunate he found us or else he would have been sleeping in the woods. We were able to get him back to where he needed to be. And he was an experienced hunter — he just got turned around, which is easy to do in those mountains. That’s why I carry a GPS and a compass.
THE TACTICS
If you’re careful, you play the wind right — downwind from the elk — and if you’re stealthy enough, you can get pretty close. But you’ve got to make sure you’re being super quiet and your scent is covered.
We’ll walk a little bit, slowly and quietly, through the woods, and we’ll sit for a little while. We repeat that, over and over again, working our way through the woods. Everybody is in different areas. We’ll stir up an animal in one spot and push it over to another hunter in another area. That’s part of the strategy: getting the animals up and moving by having hunters in various areas.
Elk are a lot like deer in that they have acute senses. Their sense of smell is so much more than what humans have — and even canines. Their eyesight is fairly good. Their hearing is good. You’re not going to sneak up on them — they’re smart animals.
Elk are large, strong, majestic animals with huge hind legs and strong front shoulders. You can be on a hill with a steep incline, and they’re going to burn right up it like it’s nothing.
They’re definitely formidable big game animals.
Nate Kilton is a local businessman and a co-owner of the Plant City Times & Observer. He is currently hunting elk in Crested Butte, Colorado, with family members.