Anyone interested in a drop camp archery elk hunt in Colorado? I used Eagle Mountain Outfitters two years ago and had a great trip. I was planning a DIY hunt this year and I ran into the outfitter yesterday and am now thinking I will make a return trip with him.

If you are interested in learning more drop me an email and I provide details. The cost of the hunt is the most often asked question. The drop camp is $1350, which includes John taking us from base camp north of Gunnison in the West Elks Wilderness area to one of his drop camps. Camp includes a tent, cots, propane light and stove and a radio. He drops us off and comes back to pick us up on the last day. He will pack out game at no additional cost. License for non-resident runs about $550. Other cost includes transportation to base camp, the guys that went with me two years ago drove to my house near OKC, spent the night in our guesthouse and we loaded up early the next morning and drove to Gunnison. We then spent one night in a hotel in Gunnison. We pre-cooked all our food so we only had to heat up each meal in camp.

Dates are TBD (September), depending on dates hunters are interested and dates outfitter has open. Hunts are 5 or 6 days with one day up the mountain and one day off. If you are interested drop me a PM and I will send you my phone number, we can talk or ask questions here, and I will attempt to answer.

Here is a couple more pics from our trip. No elk was killed.
Base Camp at the Waterman Ranch

Headed out.

You say no elk were killed. Archery elk is around 12% success rate so that may not tell the whole story. Were you in elk? Did you have close encounters? Missed shots? Passed up shots because bulls didn't meet your personal size of interest? These are more indicative of a successful archery elk hunt.

Passthrug, these are not the only ways to measure rather or not an elk hunt was a success or not.

When you only have a week to hunt and you have to schedule that week months in advance predicting rather or not elk will cooperate becomes a crapshoot. We were there the last week of archery season, betting we would be closer to the rut and cooler weather. As luck would have it, we missed both, cool weather and rut activity.

Temperatures fell into the low thirties at night and in the low 80’s during the day. Rain and sleet on our day into camp caused us to see a few elk on our way to camp. The rest of the week was hot and dry. There was plenty of elk in the area, as evident from fresh sigh each day. However, they simply were not moving or bulging during the day. We glassed a couple bulls and their harem from about two miles away and in the adjacent unit.

There were four other camps hunting that week. Only one camp reported being on any elk and they were not bulging. One other hunter got a shot at a small bull and they never found it. I spoke with a hunter that was there a couple weeks after we left (during first rifle) and he said the hunters were all over elk. He thinks there were over a dozen killed by John’s hunters during first rifle season. Elk hunting is 90% timing and luck.

How one measures success is within his own perspective. I have been elk hunting for over 10 years and have not yet killed one. Even so, the only elk hunt that I might not count as a success was the one when I broke my knee in the first half hour of the first day. Even then, I left the mountain with fond memories of time spent in the mountains with a good friend. In my opinion, those that only count success in sightings, passed or missed shots, or being on elk or harvesting an animal are missing the greater part of elk hunting.

Any elk hunter that heads for the mountains should do so with the mindset that it is okay to leave their tag behind. It is the lone howl of a coyote, the echoing sound of an elk bulging deep in the night or the stories told around a campfire that I reflect upon long after the hunt. The experience of the hunt that lives on long after the hunter gets back to the real world he lives in day to day.

This is just one of the fresh rubs what we found. This one was less than a mile from camp.

Last three years peak rut in southwestern CO has been 16-19.

Maybe next year. Was planning to this year, but my company decided to send me to Orlando for a week, so the wife and kids want to go too. There went my Elk money!

I'm sorry you feel that way. If I had put out over $10,000 in elk hunts like you without success I think I would take up another way to enjoy the outdoors. When I hunt I expect to have a reasonable chance for success. Whether I can close the distance or make the shot is on me. And the outfitter doesn't control the weather or the rut or the travel patterns of elk I know. But I don't want a deer lease on land with no deer. I don't want to bass fish in a pond with no bass and I don't want to pay $2000 dollars to walk around on a mountain with no elk around. I have hunted elk four times. Killed two, no trophies, missed one and the other time just never got the shot I was looking for. But then again I was on public land and we scouted and moved until we found elk. None of those years were we bugling them in. It was a lot of hiking and spot and stalk. BTW, the two I killed were rifle kills and I missed one with my bow. I had three other good shot ops on same hunt but was looking for a bigger bull even though I had an either sex tag in my pocket I passed on several cows. I would love to go again and a drop or fully outfitted hunt is the only way I would go but it has to be with a quality outfitter in a good area.