northern Colorado early rut is AWOL

[Katoom]

Might as well be July. Weather is hot, aspens, grass and forbs are all green, not a whisper of bugling, no wallowing, few rubs, and all bulls seen (small bulls) are still in velvet! Hoping for a change later in the week.

 

[DW]

I'd change spots.


#livelikezac

 

[coloarcher]

Bulls are ripping in the OTC unit I'm hunting this week. Hope it gets better for you soon. If not, move! Good luck.

 

[270Whatelse]

Bulls in velvet on Sept 15th I doubt it unless your talking about a spike!

 

[littlebull209338]

Where I was ML deer in unit 3 25-30 % of bucks were still in velvet. Rancher felt this was the best year for their grazing land in recent memory Everything is still fairly green for that part of the world. Deer numbers were down to about a third of past years.

 

[Cohntr62]

I've been in contact with a guy from Meeker. He's been sending pictures of deer and elk that are not in velvet and says the elk started bugling this week.

 

[txhunter58]

Deer shed much later than elk.

That said, spikes keep their velvet quite a bit longer.

txhunter58

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

 

[Katoom]

LAST EDITED ON Sep-22-19 AT 06:33PM (MST)[p]The bulls in velvet were the spikes and those with little ?club? shaped horns. Weather conditions did not change over the week but did get a couple bouts of bugling in the early AM and at sunset. Found three active wallows at the end. Most groups of cows were still unnacompanied and unharrassed. My guess is that the upcoming week will be very good. I hunted a half dozen spots in the NF from 8400 ft to 10,200 feet. I found elk every day, just little to no interest in rutting behavior. Brought a cow home in the cooler.