This year (2025) was my nineteenth season (2007-2025) of Colorado Over the Counter (OTC) unit elk hunting. During the previous eighteen years I’ve managed to put six bulls in the freezer at a rate of about one bull every three years or 33 percent. During 2024 the Colorado elk harvest for all manners of take was 20 percent. For all second rifle seasons (when I hunt) the antlered harvest was 17 percent.

“If I could pick one secret for success on public land it would be persistence,” American Hunter Field Editor Bryce M. Towsley said in the November 2024 issue. “The thing about public land is that there are a lot of hunters other than just you. You can cuss all you want, but they have as much right to be there as you do. The smart hunter uses that to his advantage. You can do a lot of scouting with OnX or Garmin, but nothing substitutes for footprints.”

In the Spring 2022 Backcountry Journal Russell Worth Parker, U.S. Marine Corps (retired), said: “Hunting without training, education and experience is really just wandering around the woods. Wandering around is a fine pursuit, and one with which I am deeply in love. But …” As Bryce and Russell suggest, prepare as much as you can beforehand—physically and otherwise—and you’ll increase your (inherently low) odds of putting elk meat in the freezer.

For an idea of the effort required to hunt second rifle season bulls—and potentially improve your odds from 17 percent to 33 percent, but hopefully you’ll do even better—I’ve included daily statistics and hunt summaries (written and video) below for eight days of second rifle season elk hunting (Oct. 25-Nov. 1). In the words of Outdoor News contributor Ryan Rothstein: “My biggest goal is to translate my own learning experiences into something that other hunters can use to improve their success.”

First off, as Bryce Towsley explained, “there are a lot of other hunters,” especially in Colorado’s OTC units where unlimited tags are sold to both resident and non-resident hunters. This practice of selling unlimited licenses is one that seems destined to end sooner rather than later given the rapidly escalating year-round outdoor recreation pressures being put on elk and their habitat in Colorado.

In fact, every Colorado Parks and Wildlife District Wildlife Manager I talk to emphasizes that the proliferation of motorized and mechanized trails (legal and illegal) is negatively impacting elk herds. And more of us, hunters and non-hunters alike, are venturing further afield every year. Partly as a result, Colorado deer and elk populations are half of what they were 20 years ago in the Forest Service’s game management units along the I-70 corridor.

And although the number of hunters nationwide is decreasing, you wouldn’t know it from my Colorado elk hunting experiences. This year within a mile or two of camp, in southwest Colorado’s San Juan Mountains, there was a veritable “village” of other hunters. In one direction an estimated 20 people (mostly from out of state, I was told) set up in multiple wall tents, campers, and trailers with perhaps 15 hunting.

In the other direction, an outfitter base camp with an estimated 5-10 clients. So, within about a two-mile radius there were camps supporting 15 to 25 hunters, which doesn’t include the locals who drove in daily to hunt. One such father-son duo I talked to over two miles from the nearest road lamented the number of hunters they’d encountered. The most important advantage you can have in this type of environment is physical fitness.

Be prepared to hike farther and hunt harder, which can be exhausting above 9,700 feet, but nothing substitutes for “persistence” and “footprints,” as Bryce Towsley emphasized. Each morning I left camp (at 9,760 ft) no later than 0530 (reaching a maximum elevation of 10,470 feet) while hunting for a total of 63.5 hours (or 7.93 hours a day on average) and covering 41.5 miles (5.18 miles per day), in addition to gaining a total of 8,668 feet of elevation (about 1,083 feet daily).

All that effort resulted in hearing and/or seeing elk during seven of eight days. Elk were actually sighted on four days (only cows were positively identified). Considering that I’ve gone back-to-back seasons without seeing, hearing, or smelling elk, this was a good result. Most importantly, I learned a lot. You can learn much from the experiences and expertise of others, but nothing substitutes for your own boots-on-the-ground elk encounters.

Smart and strong, big and fast, wary and wily: elk are all this and more. They thrive in unforgiving terrain. Infiltrating the wild and rugged world they call home in not easy. One false move and your busted. What follows is my day-by-day hunt summaries, links to short daily video updates recorded in the field, and multiple priceless elk encounters, false moves included.

Daily Hunt Summaries/Videos

Day 1 (10/25/25): Up at 0430. Leave camp at 0530 (29 degrees). Hear two bulls bugle between 0630-0700. Shots followed shortly thereafter. Encounter fresh elk sign, including strong elk aroma, and pushed/sighted one elk or mule deer. Cross paths with a father-son hunting duo who live nearby and know the area well. They’re discouraged by the number of hunters they’ve encountered.

-Southwest Colorado (2nd rifle season) elk hunting (video) Day 1 (10/25/25).

-David “Elkheart” Petersen (in A Man Made of Elk): “Every hour I spend out there among the elk makes me that much stronger, that much saner, that much more alive and glad of it.”

Day 2 (10/26/25): Up at 0415. Leave camp at 0515 (37 degrees). One elk/deer walks by at 0700 (too dark to identify). Move some animals (elk or deer?) while hunting/hiking toward two meadows. At 0830 spot a cow and calf feeding in meadow. They’re heading toward the dark timber/north facing slope. Later that morning three outfitter mules (the “original ATVs”) are positioned nearby to shuttle elk quarters being packed up the north slope.

-Southwest Colorado 2nd rifle season (video) elk hunting: Day 2 (10/26/25).

-Southwest Colorado 2nd rifle season elk hunting (video) Day 2: “Camp David” (10/26/25).

-David “Elkheart” Petersen: “Normally this time of year, hunters would drive elk down off Missionary Ridge and they would be passing through here, leaving tracks … Nothing at all so far. Glad to see at least a few aspens still in gold.”

Day 3 (10/27/25): Up at 0415. Leave camp at 0515 (34 degrees). Move 3-4 sizable groups of elk while hiking in the dark. Encounter two “village” hunters who say they heard one bulge and one shot on north slope this morning. Talk to a hunter from Bayfield and provide him with intel on potential elk hunting locales nearby. Smell elk along trail and spot two cows (hear others), then three more cows. A total of five cows and five hunters encountered during day.

-Southwest Colorado 2nd rifle season elk hunting (video) Day 3 (10/27/25).

-David “Elkheart” Petersen: “I humbly suggest that you adopt a bowhunter’s attitude, which is that you are hunting from the minute you leave camp, everything is slow and watchful, never any hurry to get any particular place unless you plan to set up on stand. Elk move all the time and can be anywhere. I killed most of my elk (at least 20 with a bow, plus several by rifle) while sitting on stand, but quite a few while ‘walking’ in and out because I wasn’t just walking, I was hunting every step of the way. On the other hand you seem to do pretty well for yourself and we all have to hunt in the way that we find most enjoyable. In any event you are out there and I am sitting on my tired old butt and I salute you.”

Day 4 (10/28/25): Coyotes howling from multiple directions/locales at 0450. Leave camp at 0515 (27 degrees). No wind and the leaves are dry enough to make stalking sound like walking on Captain Crunch. Push elk herd from a meadow at 0830 despite snail’s pace. Backtrack to another meadow and push one elk at 1000 compliments of Captain Crunch again. During the afternoon smell elk in same locale as yesterday and hear cows mewing in the thick/dark timber. None subsequently sighted.

-Southwest Colorado 2nd rifle season elk hunting (video) Day 4 (10/28/25): “Walking on Captain Crunch.”

-Colorado BHA Habitat Watch Volunteer Rick Hooley: “I know a guy that killed a bull at around 11,000 ft above timberline. I didn’t ask where, but I know in the San Juans.”

 

Day 5 (10/29/25): Leave camp at 0515 (27 degrees). Elk start making noise in thick cover to the south at 0730 and continue until about 0830. Sounds like 10-15 elk but can’t be sure. Have one in the crosshairs but can’t see its head. Also spot a mule deer buck and what was likely a bull elk (only see it from behind) in thick brush.

-Southwest Colorado 2nd rifle season elk hunting (video) Day 5 (10/29/25)

-Rick Hooley: “You are having a great hunt it sounds like … Do you think what you were hearing this morning was possibly a bull chasing a cow or cows around? Every bull has its own personality and some of them don’t bugle much.”

Day 6 (10/30/25): Leave camp at 0515 and sit in locale where group of elk approached yesterday morning. Sounds like the elk herd may be further down the mountainside today. Stalk through the woods while also periodically cow-calling and 3-4 cows respond. However, they also move away from me, not (apparently) completely trusting my less-than-convincing cow elk talk imitation. I recall a quote from the 2019 Stalk Hunting Guide: “A less-then-perfect bugle or cow call and they know it, turning tail and disappearing into the timber.”

-Southwest Colorado 2nd rifle season elk hunting (video) Day 6 (10/30/25)

-Rick Hooley: “Look forward to the great hunt recaps each day.”

Day 7 (10/31/25): Leave camp at 0515 and check multiple meadows and other locales for elk sign/activity but none encountered (i.e., smelled, heard, or seen) during the entire day.

-Southwest Colorado 2nd rifle season elk hunting (video) Day 7 (10/31/25)

-Rick Hooley: “Wow! No one said elk hunting is easy. You’ve definitely put in your time and effort on this one. Good luck tomorrow, hope a bull shows himself.”

-David “Elkheart” Petersen: “Old Dave’s first rule of successful hunting: You gotta be out there with the elk. Local hunters will be out in numbers on the last weekend with this benevolent weather, moving them around. Thus, the last weekend and especially the last day can be full of action, at least if you find a good place to sit and watch and let others walk and move them, rather than moving them yourself. In any event, other than chilly nights and mornings, what glorious weather it has been … I trust you won’t have too many trick-or-treaters disturbing your evening in camp. I’ve never had a single one in all the years here.”

Day 8 (11/1/25): Hike/hunt down south slope of nearby mountain. Return to top and hear sounds of cracking branches in the same place where the elk herd appeared on October 29. Stalk slowly forward and spot a cow that spots me too. The herd bolts and I circle around, below their direction of travel to intercept, but no dice. While hiking down the mountain, returning to camp, a cow elk appears from the brush below, heading upslope, and crosses directly in front of me (about 75 ft. away) before reentering the woods. Wait for 30 minutes to see if a bull follows her. Not a bad day/way to end the season.

-Southwest Colorado 2nd rifle season elk hunting (video) Day 8 (11/1/25): “Whitetails Next/Incoming.”

-Rick Hooley: “I’m glad you had a good hunt. Good luck on your Minnesota deer hunt.”

-Northern Minnesota rifle deer hunting season (video2): Chippewa National Forest (11/8/25).

Roadless Areas

During the first two years I hunted elk (2007-2008) we were in Game Management Unit (GMU) 74 north of Durango. I was guided by T. Mike Murphy of T Bar M Outfitters. Mike is a Backcountry Hunters & Anglers (BHA) member and a friend of David “Elkheart” Petersen, who founded the first BHA state chapter here in Colorado, during 2005, the year after BHA started/formed around a campfire in southern Oregon. David also guided for Mike.

“My own preferred method for easing out of the post-archery season elk rut is to spend one October week guiding rifle hunters from a friend’s wilderness horse camp,” David wrote in A Man Made of Elk. “It’s hard work but good, with some bugling still to be heard. Yet the recently blazing aspen leaves have gone to ground and faded there to brown. An unsettling silence shrouds the skeletal woods.”

An October 2008 Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership (TRCP) Colorado Roadless Rule report (“Backcountry Bounty: Colorado”) includes a short summary of hunting with Mike’s outfit. As stated therein: “Too much human disturbance and too many roads can reduce big game hiding cover, often resulting in shorter hunting seasons and reduced hunter opportunity … Ultimately, roadless areas offer some of the best remaining hunting and fishing available on public lands in the United States.”

An excerpt from my contribution (“Elk Hunting In Southwest Colorado: Mountaineering With A Gun,” on p. 8) is included here (also see report for full description). “I hunt north of Durango, Colo., in the Hermosa-Hesperus Peak Roadless Area, which at 148,000 acres is the state’s largest roadless area. As most hunters know, to find the biggest and longest-lived elk and other big game, you have to find the best habitat: wilderness and roadless areas. The San Juans are a good place to get away from roads, trucks and ATVs. As southwest Colorado outfitter and hunting guide Mike Murphy says, ‘This is a place where elk still die of old age.’”

Unfortunately, far too many places in the San Juan Mountains and elsewhere are littered with roads and trails. As I explained in an October 2025 BHA Blog post (“Roadless Rule Rollback: Roads to Ruin”): “Today just 8 percent of the national forest acreage in Colorado lies beyond 1 mile of a road (only 4 percent for BLM lands), and there are enough Forest Service roads (17,700 miles) in the state to go from the Kansas border to Utah and back … 17 times!”

Motorized road miles in the San Juan National Forest increased from 2,817 in the late 1990s to more than 6,400 miles as of 2008. As Mike Murphy said, “The viability of nearly every outfitter here depends on roadless areas.” And Mike has an answer to people who oppose preserving roadless and wilderness areas and say public land should be open to everyone driving or riding anything. Look at the satellite images of this corner of Colorado. “You take a look at that map and look at all the roads in southwest Colorado and northwest New Mexico, and you won’t want to see another road for a long time,” he said.

Long Odds

“Elk hunts, especially public-land hunts in a general unit, include a high failure rate. I know, I have invested thousands of dollars in elk lotteries with more than my share of disappointing results,” American Hunter Field Editor Mark Kayser explains (in “10 Reasons Why You Will Fail This Elk Season”). “The stats from Colorado, home to the nation’s largest elk population, illustrate this point.”

“In 2020, 212,667 hunters spent more than 1.1 million recreation days pursuing elk with archery tackle, muzzleloaders and modern firearms,” Mark added. “Combined, this elk army felled 39,014 bulls, cows and calves. That equals an overall success rate of a mere 18 percent. Such a number may sound disheartening, but many of the general archery units I hunt post success rates barely making it into the double digits.”

As Mark’s sobering commentary suggests, despite all the hours and miles of hiking/hunting in southwest Colorado’s San Juan Mountains this fall, like most hunters, I didn’t punch my tag or even get a bull in the crosshairs. All of this hard work is the bare minimum required to potentially put meat in the freezer, but it is still a recipe for “No Bull” more often than not.

Hence, you better be in it for more than just the kill, as good as that feels and tastes. For me elk hunting is not really about meat in the freezer or antlers on the wall. It is about a timeless and priceless love of the wild. However, when the stars align and my crosshairs find a bull, it’s all the better for the hard work involved, as it should be. No pain, no gain. As with all difficult but rewarding endeavors, learning more about yourself comes with the territory.

And most important, as David “Elkheart” Petersen said, you will become “stronger,” “saner,” and “that much more alive” for the effort. “If you’ve not hunted western public lands within the past decade or so, you’ll just have to trust me on this one,” David adds. “To find both good (undisturbed) hunting and good (quiet) camping, you must get away from the metastasizing motorized mobs.” And that’s no bull!

Additional/Related Information/Stories

-“Colorado’s Elk Need Big Wild Country.” Colorado Times Recorder: 10/21/25.

-“Roadless Rule Rollback: Roads to Ruin.” Backcountry Hunters & Anglers: 10/21/25.

-“Support For Roadless Rule, Which Protects Colorado Public Lands, ‘Damn Near Universal.’” Colorado Times Recorder: 9/25/25.

-“Autumn calls: Keeping up the fight for public lands.” Durango Herald: 9/17/25.

-“Haunted Elk Hunts.” Backcountry Hunters & Anglers: 12/10/24.

-“6x6 Karma: The Bear Facts.” Backcountry Hunters & Anglers: 11/12/24.

-“Elk Hunting: A State of Mind (& Body).” Backcountry Hunters & Anglers: 11/21/23.

-“Colorado Over-The-Counter (OTC) Unit Elk Hunting: Hope Is Not A Strategy.” Backcountry Hunters & Anglers: 8/29/23.

-“Wapiti Ambush (Part II: ‘Bonking’ Bulls).” Colorado Outdoors: 8/12/14.

-“Wapiti Ambush (Part One: Mountaineering With A Gun).” Colorado Outdoors: 7/28/14.

-“Hunting With A Man Made of Elk.” Colorado Outdoors: 1/23/14.

-“Elk Hunting in Southwest Colorado: Mountaineering with a Gun.” Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership (TRCP)-Backcountry Bounty: Colorado: October 2008, p. 8.