MeatEater Hunts Ep. 2: Colorado Elk With MeatEater Producer Janis Putelis

On this hunt I am hunting elk in central Colorado, south of a town called Leadville, which is at a very high elevation right now. I'm driving through Route County, which is where I cut my elk hunting teeth and is also where I met a good miner friend, you can comb, he also drew a special tag for elk we will hunt this week. Etha has been one of my biggest mentors in elk hunting and she pretty much taught me everything I needed to know early on about elk hunting in order to become an elk hunter. Guys, I'm really looking forward to it, I hope you do.

I have three days to explore before opening day. My goal between now and then is to get a feel for the terrain and have a big bull located that I can go after once the season starts. The unit is special for a reason and I have already decided that I am not going to settle for just any bull. It's not long before I find my first pack. When I got here I was thinking, man. I'm more, it feels more like a mountain. Goat country, sure enough, before I saw the moose, I saw a couple of goats, which is cool, but shortly after seeing the first moose, there are a couple of cows feeding along this ridge behind me and then a herd of at least 20 appeared. a six point bull in the group, is a good bull in any general unit.

I would love to be able to pursue it and in this unit we are definitely looking for something a little bigger. On this unit there is the opportunity to kill a really mature bull with big giant antlers and you could call it a bit of trophy hunting, that's certainly what I'm doing. I will be very excited to have a large set of giant antlers that will remain on my wall for the rest of my days. Obviously, I will still eat the bull. I hope it's tasty leaving Colorado, it should be, but yeah, that's the plan for today.

Hang on these rocks and keep looking for elk, keep looking for moles. Colorado breaks up their big game seasons like this, a month of archery that includes a week of muzzleloader hunting and for the rifle seasons, we will hunt the first rifle season in early October, the bull should still be bellowing and We will shoot for the first time with rifles, it is the queue. At the end of the day, number one probably saw 300 elk. I saw two bull moose, which was cool. I saw a couple of nice boxes of mule deer. So yeah, that's where we are at Jah Rastafari.

I met with Ethan and our friend Joe to think. a game plan for the next three days Ethan lives in Colorado and has been a moose guide for most of his adult life. Here we go. Ethan taught me essentially everything I know about timber handling, but it's been ten years since we hunted together, so this is a long-awaited reunion. Joe is an old friend of ours who we've skied with for decades. It wasn't until recently that Joe took up hunting and he is here to help and absorb as much elk knowledge as possible. We have a lot of land. to cover, so most days we'll split up and explore the blizzard solo all morning.

Ethan and I have waited a long time to hunt this unit because of the high trophy potential of the bull, it is very difficult to draw a tag which we were able to draw using preference points you basically gain a preference point every year you strike out and get no more Preference points equals a higher chance of tying by looking at a large group of elk that are three point three miles away. Look at Paulsen. I struck out for 13 years, so I use 13 points as a non-resident to draw. Ethan as a resident used 11 points. Perfect place to glass and take a nap.

Portions of the unit are designated wilderness areas and we do not have permission to film there, although 20% of the unit is required to be out of play, we respect the wilderness designation to keep everything on camera, we will avoid those areas. He has two bulls, but they are both two or three year olds, maybe one could be a very, very small six pointer. overall this is a 5 point Max drawing board, he just keeps looking before any hunt. It's smart to check your rifle. zero transport has a way of throwing the sights off balance. verification is zero.

We are at a very high elevation for this hunt. very good possibilities. You could shoot your bowl at ten eleven twelve thousand feet and I zeroed at three thousand, so I'll most likely shoot high and I'm not going to click down a little bit. I'll shoot three, it's always good to set yourself up for success the last thing you want to do a day or two before a hunt to start questioning what you've got going you know the lower range is the perfect friend this way you can't fulfill that It's right where it needs to be so I'm ready to roll I'm shooting a 180 grain bullet It's a 300 Weatherby 300 yards zero I'm three inches tall almost perfect We're ready to hunt I just have to find out now where you are While we've seen hundreds of elk so far neither Ethan er I found the one we decided to undertake together for our last night of exploration before opening day.

We could go glass to the north and when the angle of the Sun goes down a little bit, it will open up these things here. Yes, let's do that. Nothing good. Noel, here's a uniform guide now, 30 years later, this is my number 30, I think 1990, that was you number one, yeah, so I turn around, I think 2000 or 2001, so I have to hang out with you for Middle Ken mm-hmm yeah You ever missed the first rifle vacation, guys, this is what vacation like this is, your first rifle vacation, right, yeah, and instead of going to a sunny beach like the holidays and you came to the new country rocky and windy, new country, it's nice, it was amazing when You sit here singing like crazy, so you probably know we'd look too good, go have fun, here's some bugles.

Yes, you want to hunt here again this morning. Should we go hunting to burn? I'm easy, buddy, it's probably the last bugles of. To me the season looks like as long as it is light on the opening morning we decided to hunt a burned area where Ethan had located several bulls while scouting earlier in the week, it doesn't take long and we are hearing the elk, it could be worse. I stayed silent. fast, the wind never calms down and finally all the bulls sniffed us out and left the country for the fools to go out like that, yeah, the Nava rat right there and the metal spider, oh yeah, that was it, it's chasing that mule, there it is.

He's confused, yeah, he's behind it, I'm the leader, oh, that was fun, hot dude when they go from a vehicle to a cold stone, you know, it's uh, yeah, the wind, why do they call it? still? That's a very good question that I've always called her from. a boy a squirrel hunting when we go elk hunting we go outside we go squirrel hunting because that's how we learn to sneak in the woods if you can pick up that pace squirrel hunting in the woods yeah and keep the wind true, you'll usually run into something. I still can't believe it's your 30th year.

I do it for those guys. You know, I still do it because I want those guys to think of it as good experience and as a good hyung. Have you ever lost that it's time to take it easy, start duck hunting or something like that. I always knew you as a pretty calm hunter, you weren't too worried about taking down a bunch of bulls, but did you ever have that when you were young? boy, whatever you want, I have to kill a lot of them, I think in my 20s and 20s and 30s there was a time where they guided me or it was like killing two hunters, two bowls, go grab the hunter of someone else, go out and kill. another one like come on, let's follow this, but as you get older you just enjoy the little things in the forest and you're not so bloodthirsty and you enjoy watching them and watching them do their thing and it's not that big of a part of what I have to do, I have that carrying them back to the truck is a little complicated for me, it's almost becoming anticlimactic, you know me, I'm kind of an old traditionalist, what I like most is going out with your friends and having a good time in the woods and the camaraderie. and the camaraderie, everything else is just the icing on the cake, this country is amazing, you can go 13,000 feet above the tree line, see moose, second notice of the hunt, we are not news and we explored this place, we saw an opal From a distance it appeared here.

The first light is an impressive bold wall figure, the rest who meet them didn't see how big the ruler was and made a move to get a little closer and hopefully other eyes looked at it, it's decent, it's still about He, oh yeah, he's walking slow. yes, a small second, yes, and his tongues were already hanging out. Like, well, we saw a bull, we make this little bull very far away, we'll let him go. Sometimes I root for the moose a little bit, you know what I mean. I do it, it's hard. making a living on this pile of windy rocks Ethan and I decide to split up for the night and he returns to the region we have come to call Bern, maybe tonight we will put on a shoe, if we see one we must find it first.

I think Yanni and I have adopted a slightly different style of awning. I'm not so much of an open country person, I spend a lot of time in large glass looking for animals. I like to get into the wood. the sign isn't that there's something better one way or another, it's probably better to be well rounded for open country hunting and have the patience and skills to look a lot through your optics, but it probably comes from the way I was raised and I grew up. hunting in the woods and that's what I'm comfortable with. Have you ever heard the old saying, you stand out like a turd on a linoleum floor, that's how I feel sometimes in this bird, it was good, it's going down though, buddy, we better get going?

Hide our excrement, get it off this linoleum floor and get out of this song. Ethan sits behind a makeshift blind and waits for the moose to approach him. That sound you just heard is called an alarm bark and it's the last thing you want to hear. during prime time not only does it not mean they made you, but it also puts all the other moose with one ear on high alert beautiful again, it sounds like it's still on top, but there are other moose here, I can hear it, you tell me? someone who wasn't white here's some good little sex but let's keep it up that's the way I like it Donna it's the third morning of the hunt Ethan and I split up right now I have four cows high on the horizon here above the tree line I'm Surely there is a bull in the group instead of waiting to see what happens.

I'm going to keep pushing and gaining saliva and hopefully I'll get a closer look oh big herd, big herd just on the horizon, they're coming down. So far they had heard that I am going to put the telescope and see if there is a bull there, okay, it is a very good bowl in the back, we need to look at it closer, but I think it is a shooter, there is a lot of time. too far away they could be coming towards this towards the drainage I'm in they could end up staying high and passing either way I feel like I need to make a move luckily I have a pretty good ridge coming down from my right so if I sneak to the right , maybe 500 meters through these willows, I'll be able to get the ridge between me and the moose at least a little bit closer and start closing the distance because you know who knows we're going to finish, but I need to stay with them all They're going to disappear here very soon there's another horizon but if you look in this direction maybe I'll come back this way as soon as I see the last one disappear on the horizon I'm just I'm going to head towards this little hump in the back.

This is always a little sketchy because they are now out of sight. I don't know where they are. I have to make a very exposed move right now for a couple hundred yards. Unfortunately, it is one. What you have to do sometimes is assume that animals are doing what you expect them to do, so yeah, hopefully, looking at them and looking down on them, it's very stressful, you try not to think about the 13 or 14 years it took to apply for get this tag those points you saved all those dreams and big balls you had just try to stay focused on the hunt I get stressed when you can't see it you don't know what's going to happen they're heading this way If they outrun me they'll beat me so I gotta to be in front of them.

It's hard to do these sneaks and all of them at 12,000 feet, but if I end up on that Rozelle ridge, I'll be at 12,000 feet. I am impatient and continue climbing the mountain. I circle the top of an entire mountain and find the moose in the original ball it was on. If I had stayed still, they would be feeding right at me. Fortunately, when I find them, the terrain offers the perfect feature for me to hide. my focus i stay low and rush five he's really hot i want to pull the trigger he's the big talent the biggest guy scene had between 70 and 85 points which is sweet i mean he outshines the little one the little bull , to the little five-pointer, that's with them, that's something very special to me, there's about three hundred meters of a group like this, give me some time to think, I pull the trigger, you have to think in your head, no I will be excited and they will be happy when I walk towards this ball the answer is yes, but I am halfstunned this unit has a chance to hold off a giant here and you don't get these opportunities often which is what you have to remember and I'm I'm going to let this guy walk I won't shoot him today Great hunt Great hunt I don't regret it at all No I shot that bull I'm very happy it's pretty cool You know what else is cool is that I'm 40 years old?

I gave my health the opportunity to hike through great alpine basins at 12,000 feet and enjoy these beautiful Colorado views. He's very lucky, it's Ethan's second to last day of hunting and I have split up again and he's heading to an area called Jackson. Creek to follow some wolves we saw last night and we just hiked around in this little 4x5. I spent a good part of my sleepless life analyzing and overthinking and trying to outsmart these fools and this morning I'm mad because I had to walk through a Cottonwood stand this spring this guy doesn't care sometimes a little noise helps in uncomfortable moments sometimes it kills you that ball I passed the night before last, good night, it was a little bigger than this guy, that's the guy we want to see.

It's where I wanted there to be daylight, but we came to ELQ on our way here and there's an old proverb about hunting elk. don't pass up the moose to go moose hunting, so now that we're here I'm going to get windburned, maybe a little sunburned, and do some Glasson, here's the glass turret, right here, this one It is a small sniper shelter along this drainage. We have like 60 heads, so we'll do the big zoom in and see if we can at least get a closer look. I love it when your elk hunt turns into a sheep hunt.

I feel like the terrain is in and my leg a foot in were cheap and seem to be angled up. I'm thinking about going high and trying to get over them right there. The wind comes now just in case you gain some lift. There is a great when I see the top of your heart. He was referring to our left or right and I could see the hardest horns on his back. There are two small six pointers, a small 5x5, and a nice larger, heavier 5x5. It's a nice five points. It's broken on the right side, but it's a mature bull. sure and considering how far we are from the truck I think we'll let him walk and a good hunter finally caught up to them and got in the middle of them, it's our last day of hunting and I headed to an area alone.

Recommended by a local there are two giant herds, one seems to have between seventy and a hundred people and the other I only captured half. I saw at least thirty in that one. The thought of another big alpine push is a little daunting, but I could definitely do it. I just got a text from Ethan and he told me that he's in the Magic Circle. The Magic Circle means you have Bulls playing everywhere. Yes, it's all food trays outside. He said a couple of little ones have passed away, but there are some growlers in it. group, so he's trying to attack them, sure enough, it's not long before Ethan texts me that he has a defeated bull, Joe and I meet Ethan at the trailhead to help with the herd .

Now I went ahead and butchered it and put it in logs and bagged it and I'm about to hit the red line. I would get in a group and like I had cows at 40 yards, 50 yards, 20 yards, chirping, and I was making my read calls like really loud and they were eating it. up and well, I would have a bugle and I would get ready and get ready and try to spot a shot lying in the wood. Spike's girls, the little four-pointer passed by, several small bulls approached that growler again. I had it. about 50 yards into thick wood and I can hear them walking and I'm waiting and I'm waiting and I've got cows all around me and sure enough, the wind picks up, they're all gone and I'm going to chase them all. the way to the top of the peak I don't know what time it was nine o'clock at this point I'm going to start heading back towards the truck I started leaning over this bench and I heard this and he was laying down and I looked over the edge and I see a horn and It's a five point horn and it turned and I slid on my butt and about 50 yards out I shot him in the shoulder lying on his bed, it's a good 5 on the right sides broken about in half. broken maybe yes, I didn't see that side, but you know, the last day is a good way to end, yes, end an incredible five day result that should be overturned, there you go, yes, he is a fighter, I thought that this is all I saw in his bed if our hunch had ended here when Ethan said that hunting is about having a good time with your friends and having a good time in the woods.

One night I had to find my own beam and thanks to my Scout this morning I knew exactly where to find it, but there was one problem: the moose I saw this morning were in a wilderness area. Wilderness areas have special rules about commercial filming and do not grant filming permits easily, as I mentioned before we did not have a permit to film in the wilderness area without a plan B and a tag I waited 13 years to draw it about to run out I decided to hunt the big pack without a camera was an amazing afternoon in the highlands capped by me shooting this bullet 50 yards sorry you didn't get to see the action but those are the rules, wilderness areas are special because of the strict rules.

I encourage you to spend time in one and bring a friend, you won't be disappointed.