I have never been Elk hunting, or hunting at all in CO.

Should I go with a guide, or just buy a tag and go to a public unit?

Should I hunt deer in CO for a season first?

I like the idea of doing it "on my own", and I would prefer to go somewhere that I have to hike in, I want it to be an adventure.

I wouldn't be going by myself, probably take my brother in law.

ETA, this would be in 2-3 years.

Tagged. I’ll get back to ya.

K, the meal is settling in, the bourbon is flowing.....

That’s a big question.

If you are coming all the way here, do deer/elk tags.  Bear tags are cheap for non res, kill one of them.  Seriously, I have seen a big increase in bears.  Just leave the sows with cubs alone.

Figure your price for a guided hunt vs a unguided/on your own adventure.   If you think elk meat is worth that difference, get a guide.  FYI any decent guided hunt will be 5k+ for 5 days, but all you have to do is show up with clothes, gun and boots.  You will be in for license fees of 600-1000 ea. Either unguided or guided.

Better chance to score guided for sure .  But the whole experience of even hunting out of a truck camp is amazing, just gotta keep a positive attitude and keep grinding till you find the elk.  Sadly most don’t.    I talk to guys all the time who tell me there are no elk.  I usually see them in camp and not in the field.

You need a fair bit of gear to pull off a self guided hunt.  Decent tent with heat or a camper.  Sure you can tough it out in a fucking hammock or backpack tent.  Go right ahead, I like a warm bed and a place to dry out.   Nothing wrong with living in a tiny tent for a few nights, I have done it.  When the weather is nice it’s great.  When it is shit, it sucks.   There are plenty of animals to be found within a mile of any Jeep road,  IF they are in that drainage.  If not, you gotta be mobile and start checking other spots.   Tough to do on a backpack hunt.

That’s all I have time for right now, rokslide is a great place to learn.
Check them out.  Good on you planning far ahead.

Time for a pic or 2

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In the same boat as op. Hoping to do a trip 2021 for rifle and stay in a tow behind camper with a buddy. Don’t mind having to drive then hike-in in the Am.  As long as we can get a decent setup. It looks like good advice so far!

With the point/lottery system here and some of the terrain you deal with in CO you would be best served by using a guide.

IMO, especially if you want to have any degree of success.

They will be able to make sure you are geared up properly, can do some things that will help you out conditioning wide, and help get your tags.

This is just MO.

I have been to Colorado hunting for a bull elk three times and twice with some locals.  Never got a bull in Colorado so I would suggest hiring a guide.

The guided way is generally more productive for sure, and easy.  You just show up with a minimum of gear and next thing you are hunting, being fed and kept.

But I still make the best shitters in camp.

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I started about 10 years ago with a couple of buddies and some internet research and reading a few books. Never done a guided hunt we've taken some big bulls and some nice cows.

We have learned a lot over the years  had tons of fun and it's been completely worth it.

I say do a little research talk to some locals and get out and Hunt that's really the only way you can learn and in my opinion it's the best way.

@DVCER yours doesn't look like it would splinter.....

Damn, toilet seats are only 6.00.

I have found some primitive examples over the years.

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Its all fun and games til you have to dig up the road to get out.

Great pics.

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Yeah, that would suck having to shovel your way out.  Doesn’t look like much snow tho.  Were you dragging a big trailer?

I got stuck down in the bottom of this drainage on the cathedral bluffs about 30 miles from Debeque.   Brand new duramax, chained up.   It was mud from snowmelt and a really sketch road out.   Had a quartered cow in the back for weight too, but I just couldn’t get up that road without risking going off the edge.  No cell service either.

Spent most of the night right by this creek, built a big fire and heated up some MREs, killed a bottle of bourbon and slept in the truck.   Woke up right before sunrise, the 15 degree temps froze the mud solid and we easily got out.

Kind of a pro tip for the noobs, if you are risking sliding off the road in the mud/snow in the middle of nowhere, wait it out till it freezes solid.

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Sheet ice on a steep grade (steeper than it looks and if you went off the side you were f***ed), had to dig out some dirt and cover the ice to get down.  After this happened - see front of Ford...(Hell I even put chains on the Jeep to get down it.  It was melt run off that had refrozen as slick as an ice skating rink.

Yow.  Downhill on that stuff is worse than uphill.

I went back in October.   We just drove out and picked a spot off the map to hunt.  I prefer this method as I enjoy the "hunt" part as much as seeing animals.  I like to explore areas and try to pattern animals etc.  The harvest is just the topping .

We could not get to exact spot I wanted do to logging operations.  Settled for a back up spot I choose from google earth.

We had OTC bull elk tags.   GET deer tags for next year.   I did have a bear tag.

Day 1 was great.  Saw Lots of deer and moose and a few elk way down the valley.

Day 2-5 SNOWED.... we got about 3.5 feet of snow.  It was really hard to get out and move around.  I was the only one crazy enough to actually venture out.  Saw a few deer I jumped while walking and a nice bull moose.

Day 6 was cloudy but still had snow so still hard to get around.

Day 7 was nice, was able to ride 4 wheeler and access some new areas.  Saw 26 elk and one really nice bull.  Unfortunately no shots were taken.

Day 8 we packed it up a left ahead of the next big snow storm.

Things I learned as first timer.

1.  Everyone must have a 4x4 4 wheeler to access areas.
2.  The tent with wood stove was wonderful.  Cots made it very nice.
3.  Don't pack so much next time.
4.  Suntan lotion is a must. although we only saw the sun 1 day.
5.  chap stick is a must.
6.  MAKE sure the guys you go with are hunters and not whiners or gear queers.  Nothing fun about a guy telling everyday how many elk he can see 5 miles away with his super duper spotting scope.
7.  Kansas is flat and boring. LOL
8.  Need a REAL ID drivers license to buy Colorado tags at walmart.  We ended

up going to the game commission office to get tags.
9.  I will go again, hopefully next year, just need to find other hunters to go

with.

Been there with worthless hunt partners.  I usually go solo last few years.   Very few guys are willing to do all the work needed, not just around camp.  Lots of prep for the trip and lots of cleaning up after it’s over.

I sent a jackass packing out of my camp a few years back.  Entitled prick who thought it was like a guided hunt, did nothing but bitch and burn all the wood I gathered.  Came back after dark and he was sleeping off a drunken day.  No fire in the stove, no wood in the tent.

I’d been on the mountain since sunrise and this fucker asks me what’s for dinner, and we need some wood.  He was gone the next night.

If I could line up some local guy whose heart was in it like mine it would be nice.   Some of my good friends I used to hunt with just say it’s too much work.   I love it, so it ain’t work to me.

Lol, I could probably get 20$ for a chapstick on the mountain, always have extras.   The guys I run into that neglected to bring chapstick are easy to spot after a few days.  It looks painful.
Ran into a guy at a trailhead this year that no kidding had a trickle of blood on his chin from split lips.   I felt bad for him, got in my pack and pulled a spare chapstick out.   You’d think I just saved his life he was so grateful.

My wife packed some fancy creme for my face.

I thought she was just trying to be nice and took the stuff just because.

Turned out to be wonderful every night to put that on and sooth the wind burn.

If you decide on not using a guide(we don't and have lots of fun), I would highly recommend you take a trip out to all the possible areas you would like to hunt and hike some of it. Especially if you plan on backpack hunting, which is what I do with OTC archery. Shouldn't be too difficult to do since you have the trip planned a few years out

Cotton balls soaked in vasoline for fire starters...

A) Reallly kick ass fire starters that are as good as anything on the commercial market.

B) Vasoline for chapped lips if you lose/forget your chap stick.

That is a really good idea.  I need to cycle out my old firestarters anyway.

I would suggest a guide company that scopes out trails before the season so your chances are better. There's a large heard in South Park. Problem is the Forest Service Areas you can go in has to many dumb asses that run around on there ATVs and make so much noise that your lucky to see anything... Knew of family that worked the Black Mesa area by Delta long ago and were very good at it. They had horses in get into back areas. You will need to know someone that knows land owners but because of past years of live stock getting shot, good luck on that.....

How set are you on Elk? Or Colorado for that matter?

I’d recommend going for Antelope or Mule Deer first. Then as you get more comfortable with everything, from the regs, to the terrain, to the weather, etc go after Elk. If you are okay with a doe/cow, there are some really high success, easy to draw options out there.

To hunt Elk out west is a tough, and possibly dangerous endeavor, especially for a first timer. That said there aren’t a lot of things left in this country as satisfying, freeing, and fulfilling as a DIY hunt on western public land. Once you do it you will be hooked.

My first western hunt was antelope. I was successful, almost so much so it was a bit of a let down. I shot a really nice buck the opening afternoon. But I learned a ton from that experience, from gear, to terrain, etc.

My hunt this last year was a general Montana elk tag. I didn’t come home with Elk meat in the freezer, but it was still a “success.” I had a shot opportunity on an Elk the day of the opener. Long story but we didn’t end up with Elk in the freezer. As much as I learned the year prior, I learned that much more this year. We dealt with a deadly “polar vortex” that brought record temps for much of the week. Even though my gear was 10x better this go round, and both of us had pretty extensive outdoor background, we found ourselves in a few hairy situations with the weather.

That said I wouldn’t trade the experience I had this year for anything else. It was an adventure, pure and simple, one we wouldn’t have had with a guide there to hold our hand.

Bottom line there is nothing wrong with getting a guide for your first go round. You’re going to pay big money for it, and it will probably boost your odds of success. If all you want is an elk on the wall and don’t plan on doing it again, save the money on about 3k of gear and get a guide. If you just want a really cool experience and you might do this year after year, go to a place like rokslide, start doing some research and be prepared to spend about 3-4K on quality gear between now and when you go.

Stay off of private land.  I have private land and I'm known to patrol it even when I don't have a tag.  If I find you, you will have a nice "chat" with the sheriff.

A few hunters have thought it was a good idea to try it.  Land is posted, and surrounded by my extended family's land (no way you "stumbled in" from public).

If you do a self-guided trip, it's best to have figured out their migration patterns through the season you apply for tags.  It becomes a much easier game if you know they will come to you rather than chasing them over miles and miles of mountain.

A guy posts about if he should use a guide or not and you feel the need to remind him to stay off posted private land?

OP, get OnX maps. Download the area you are going to hunt. I didn’t mention it in my post because I assume you aren’t and imbecile, but it is a really great tool if you aren’t familiar with it. A lot of land out west isn’t exactly obviously marked as public or private.

I use onx when I do public land hunts, it's very good.  Even works w/o cell service if you download the maps before you lose cell service.
Also very "pretty" maps, for what that's worth (it's worth it because they are easy to understand).

You'd be surprised how many people hunt my place w/o permission due to the migration pattern of elk and lack of hunting pressure like public land has....if I get a tag in the right season, I can pretty much just hike up and wait under a tree. I don't give permission and I don't guide.

It's a bigger problem than you think.  We're all pretty good people here.  But my experience is that there are plenty of shitty people in the world to make up for the difference.  I don't want OP getting snared by making a mistake about where he is.  People out in west CO aren't very nice about trespassing hunters based upon the convos I've had with folks around my place.....and nobody is going to believe "I didn't know it was private."

I think the percentage of hunters who trespass these days is probably pretty low. There isn’t much of an excuse these days with the technology we have. That isn’t to say isn’t not a big problem, but as you know 5% of people make the other 95% look terrible.

But yeah, get OnX, use it. It will solve 99% of any landownership issues you would deal with as a hunter.

Trespassing while hunting or fishing in Colorado is a pretty serious thing.  And unlike “back East”, the landowner has no responsibilities to fence or sign their property.   It is completely on the hunter to know where the boundaries are.

Sometimes the lack of knowledge works in my favor, when the dudes see a fence they are afraid to cross, on public land.  Grazing allotments are a thing out here.  OnX is gold.