Colorado Elk & Deer

[elkhunter7pt]

I'm a non resident and will have five points for both in two years.
What units would have a good combo hunt or back to back hunts. Looking for a unit that gives me a good chance of taking a 160 plus buck and a legal bull. Not trying to steal your spot, just looking at units with lots of public land. Any help much appreciated. Thanks

 

[WesternSky]

look through the guides (northwest and southwest) http://wildlife.state.co.us/Hunting/BigGame/HuntGuides/Pages/BigGameHuntingGuides.aspx

 

[need4x4]

Hard to judge what you can draw in two years. Hard enough to judge what you can draw next year.

I'd focus on the deer tag that you can draw with other factors like your abililty to get off the roads and they type of place you want to hunt (thick or open stuff). Then buy the otc elk tag and see if you can get lucky while your going after your deer.

The time I tried to get it done like you want to get it done, we didn't kill any elk. I am sure if we would have gone after just elk, it would have been different.

It might be a little difficult to get the full use out of your points on both sides of the draw (elk and deer) at the same time. If you did pull that off, you would have a hard time putting the full effort into both tags.

Might make it easier on yourself if you were going to use a guide, even with that it might be difficult.

Not saying it can't be done.

 

[txhunter58]

LAST EDITED ON Jan-17-12 AT 04:38PM (MST)[p]Start here: http://huntodds.monstermuleys.com/

Click on Colorado, species, nonresident, and put your points in. Don't enter unit or type of hunt. then click search. It will give you all the hunts you could draw with your points.

txhunter58

venor, ergo sum (I hunt, therefore I am)

 

[homebru_trout]

4x4 and txhunter have given some good things to get started with. IMHO, you're in an odd place with points. 5 is enough to make me think twice about blowing them by going halfway on either elk or deer, and you're not in range of drawing a super premium unit for either animal. Don't get me wrong, with some research and work those points can get you an excellent specimen. I hunted both at the same time two years ago and regret it as I just had to much second guessing rolling around in my head and didn't fill either tag.

Back to back hunts will be tough unless you have the time to hunt both in archery, or archery + muzz. After archery season, Colorado leaves 3-5 days between hunts so you've sorta killed an extra work week waiting for the next season to start...which is hard for a lot of NR folks to do with the expense of time off, travel, etc. 2nd and 3rd rifle are combined hunts so if you find a unit you like, you can draw both tags same season.

If it were me personally, I would do as 4x4 suggested and look for the best deer unit I could draw with 5 in an OTC elk area. And maybe save my elk points for a future hunt. You could flip that around and see if you can find a 5 point elk unit that draws deer second chance or leftover. But that is just my $0.02 and your mileage may vary. If you want to hunt 'em both, it can certainly be done but it'll run you ragged.

What you're going to need is a big kitchen table ;-). Start out with the hunt draw odds on this site...if you don't specify a unit or weapon it will spit out everything by species and you can see how your elk and deer draw odds line up.

Then I'd pop over the pref points and hunt summary statistics at the DOW site and grab those
http://wildlife.state.co.us/Hunting/BigGame/Statistics/Pages/Statistics.aspx
Next, download the Big Game Hunt guides here:
http://wildlife.state.co.us/Hunting/BigGame/HuntGuides/Pages/BigGameHuntingGuides.aspx
And here's the link to GMU unit maps so you can have a virtual look around.
http://wildlife.state.co.us/Hunting/Pages/GMUnitMaps.aspx

Smear all that stuff around the kitchen table and grab a couple highlighters and a pencil and then the real fun starts. That's probably not the concise answer you wanted to hear, but it's a necessary precursor to walking in the woods in the fall.

 

[elkhunter7pt]

Thanks guys for all the great information. I'm just trying to narrow down the units. I would not mind drawing a deer tag and hunting it then when it gets over then buy an over the counter elk tag for the following week in some unit and see what I could come up with. Are there any units that are good for taking of a cow elk also? I've looked through the kill rates and they just don't seem that high. Any more info would be muchly appreciated. Thanks

 

[homebru_trout]

Cow elk are only OTC unlimited during archery season in select units. You essentially have some units that are cow elk unlimited for archery, and then some other units that are either sex unlimited. Rifle season OTC tags are for bull elk only in select units. So you'd have to be hunting archery for the deer + cow plan to work.

Use the GMU Unit maps link from above and navigate to some of the deer units you're thinking of hunting and then turn on the elk distribution overlay. Many if not all of the places you'd be looking to hunt deer on the west slope will give you a chance at an elk as well.