Rob’s Ramblings

The Pre Hunt 8/30/04

This adventure began several months ago when I was talking with my friend since college Dan. I told him that I wanted to go elk hunting with him and my other college pal Jim next season.

I was to soon find out that Jim had already made different plans for the 2004 season. He has promised a few of his work comrades to take them into the Colorado Mountains to hunt for elk and he would guide them on their journey.

If you know Jim then you know that is no surprise that he would give up his chance to hunt for elk and instead put on a guide hat. Jim has always been the guy that enjoys the time as much as the hunt. During and after college Jim, Dan and I have been hunting together on a regular basis for almost twenty years. Over the last several years we have lived in different parts of the county, Jim and Dan have been together in Kansas City still chasing the game. While I was in the big city of Los Angeles wishing I could find a safe place to hunt.I was lucky to live right beside the Angeles National Forest . In my quest to find a place to hunt I talked to a ranger to find out that the forest was a very dangerous place. Being so close to LA it is the dumping grounds for bodies and the growing grounds for marijuana for the LA gangs. I was told it was the only National Forest where the rangers carried high powered rifles for protection. With this information in my pocket I decided not to hunt in California unless I found a safe place. I never found a place that I could feel comfortable to hunt in all four years we live in California.This year marks a change to all our lives as the last of our band of buddies, Jim has tied the knot with a young lady. I wish them well, but hope she understands he is a man with a fever for the outdoors and will never heal.With this information I asked Dan if he was up for an elk hunt. He told me to apply for a tag and if I got a tag he would go along to show me the lay of the land. Our back up plan was to go archery bear hunting which didn’t require a drawing. Unfortunately the preference point I thought I had was not available because of a mistake I made the last time I applied for an elk tag. I was unsuccessful in drawing my archery elk tag unfortunately.Dan and I proceeded to move to plan B, an archery bear hunt was something we had both dreamed about since college. Archery season for bear in Colorado is over the counter and open in most hunting zones west of I-25. The season starts at the same time as elk season in late August. In early July I began my quest to get in shape for the mountains. I have always been the heavier guy in our group and had put on lots of weight in my years away in California. The September before I had started a diet and lost 45 pounds of weight but had gained back 15 pounds by July.My quest to get in shape started with walking three or four times a weeks for a couple miles. After I got used to this activity I began increasing my distance to four and six miles each time. When we were about six weeks to go for the trip I increased my walks to every day of the week.This is when the hunt changed course. Dan and I both separately called to buy our tags from the DOW. We ran into a severe problem, apparently the bear hunting rules require an elk or deer tag to buy a bear tag. In addition you cannot hunt a bear in a zone that you don’t have a deer or elk tag. This made us hunting in zone 12 impossible since we weren’t successful in our drawing of a tag. After several hours of talking with the DOW I realized my dream of hunting in Colorado was falling apart. I did find out we could hunt over the counter for elk just not in the zone we wanted.For days I looked over topographical maps online and researched hunting reports online. I found several possible places to hunt but had no idea what the roads would be like or how many hunters would be in the area. Finally we decided to go and just figure it out when we get to Colorado. I may not get on the elk quick but it will be fun trying to find them for us both.
This also changes the workout plans and physical requirements. Since elk tend to be much higher in the mountains and hunters push them to more remote areas we would need to backpack in to the mountains. I ordered a backpack online and proceeded to workout even harder. In addition to my daily workouts I was shooting my bow one hundred arrows a day every day.When my pack arrived it made me nervous and excited all at once. I learned how the pack worked and proceeded to load it with two containers of two and a half gallons of water and an additional twenty pounds of padding. My sixty pound pack was ready for a workout. Three weeks prior to our trip I changed my workout to every other day. Walking four or five miles at a time with my sixty pound pack really made me worried about the trip. I live in Texas with very little big hills around to get me ready for the mountains. I can now walk with my loaded pack up the small hills with no problem. I have lost almost twenty pounds. All my gear is packed and I’m ready to head to Kansas City to meet Dan. From there we will car pool with Jim out to the Rocky Mountains. I am confident in my ability to shoot my bow and kill an elk, but I’m still worried about the altitude and steep climbs.