Any Coweeman success?

[ron9909]

Heading down for my special bull hunt. Wondering if anyone chased any elk around. I've  been down there before and love the area. Should not have a lot of pressure with only one tag this year..

[ASienkiewich]

My brother has the One Winston tag as well. Not much elk activity during archery. Hopefully it calms down and the elk get going for these permits! Post your results! Good luck!


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[shadowless_nite]

Hate to say it.... but I think the most successful killer in the coweeman has been hoof rot.

Good luck out there and please prove me wrong. Been years since I tried to hunt out there. It would be nice to see or hear of some success from that unit.

[ron9909]

Well 5 days of hunting. Sun up to after sun down. Never saw one Elk. Hunted high, low, Reprod, Alder bottoms. Hiked and hiked and yes hiked. My boy drove around looking for sigh and saw very little. We hunted the north side of the unit and then headed to middle part of the unit. I know the elk numbers are down but maybe they should not make this unit a quality bull hunt.  But one good note for deer hunters. We saw around 50 deer in the unit. No big bucks but several 2 points. Saw around 20 horses. One dark brown horse down in a canyon and for a minute thought I saw bigfoot. Still have general elk season and yes you won't see me in the Coweeman...

[Bullkllr]

That's quite an unfortunate situation. That unit crashed remarkably fast. There was a time...not long ago...when that would have been a major premium tag to draw.

[dc]

The coweeman is a shadow of its formal self.  I actually did not buy access permit this yr ( have since inception) due to the horrible conditions of the elk heard. 

[ThurstonCokid]

Used to see over a hundred elk a season in there.. now you’re lucky to see even one


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[Mfowl]

Just out of curiosity, I am not a westside elk hunter but for those of you who are, do you find a lot of bone piles or evidence of elk dying in areas such as Coweeman or anywhere that populations are declining rapidly? Anyone coming across carcasses that are natural/hoof rot? Or are the elk just not reproducing after they become effected?

[Big6bull]

Just out of curiosity, I am not a westside elk hunter but for those of you who are, do you find a lot of bone piles or evidence of elk dying in areas such as Coweeman or anywhere that populations are declining rapidly? Anyone coming across carcasses that are natural/hoof rot? Or are the elk just not reproducing after they become effected?

Not coweeman but When I was shed hunting areas like Margaret and mudflow few years back. It was common to run into 20 dead a day.... very bad

[funkster]

Well 5 days of hunting. Sun up to after sun down. Never saw one Elk. Hunted high, low, Reprod, Alder bottoms. Hiked and hiked and yes hiked. My boy drove around looking for sigh and saw very little. We hunted the north side of the unit and then headed to middle part of the unit. I know the elk numbers are down but maybe they should not make this unit a quality bull hunt.  But one good note for deer hunters. We saw around 50 deer in the unit. No big bucks but several 2 points. Saw around 20 horses. One dark brown horse down in a canyon and for a minute thought I saw bigfoot. Still have general elk season and yes you won't see me in the Coweeman...

Is your tag still going? I helped a family member last year during muzzle season(multi tag). We got into a handful of legal bulls. They’re still there, of course not in the numbers they used to be which makes them a lot harder to find. I would focus more around the south east around RMZ areas.

[ron9909]

Well 5 days of hunting. Sun up to after sun down. Never saw one Elk. Hunted high, low, Reprod, Alder bottoms. Hiked and hiked and yes hiked. My boy drove around looking for sigh and saw very little. We hunted the north side of the unit and then headed to middle part of the unit. I know the elk numbers are down but maybe they should not make this unit a quality bull hunt.  But one good note for deer hunters. We saw around 50 deer in the unit. No big bucks but several 2 points. Saw around 20 horses. One dark brown horse down in a canyon and for a minute thought I saw bigfoot. Still have general elk season and yes you won't see me in the Coweeman...

Is your tag still going? I helped a family member last year during muzzle season(multi tag). We got into a handful of legal bulls. They’re still there, of course not in the numbers they used to be which makes them a lot harder to find. I would focus more around the south east around RMZ areas.

The hunt ended yesterday.

[ron9909]

Just out of curiosity, I am not a westside elk hunter but for those of you who are, do you find a lot of bone piles or evidence of elk dying in areas such as Coweeman or anywhere that populations are declining rapidly? Anyone coming across carcasses that are natural/hoof rot? Or are the elk just not reproducing after they become effected?

I saw 4 sets of bones. One was a old kill or poach. All the bones were still together and the skull had the horns cut off.

[funkster]

Well 5 days of hunting. Sun up to after sun down. Never saw one Elk. Hunted high, low, Reprod, Alder bottoms. Hiked and hiked and yes hiked. My boy drove around looking for sigh and saw very little. We hunted the north side of the unit and then headed to middle part of the unit. I know the elk numbers are down but maybe they should not make this unit a quality bull hunt.  But one good note for deer hunters. We saw around 50 deer in the unit. No big bucks but several 2 points. Saw around 20 horses. One dark brown horse down in a canyon and for a minute thought I saw bigfoot. Still have general elk season and yes you won't see me in the Coweeman...

Is your tag still going? I helped a family member last year during muzzle season(multi tag). We got into a handful of legal bulls. They’re still there, of course not in the numbers they used to be which makes them a lot harder to find. I would focus more around the south east around RMZ areas.

The hunt ended yesterday.

Dang, sorry man! Hope you didn’t blow to many points. That unit has really gone downhill. I used to see 100 elk a day. I called in one of the biggest bulls I ever seen it that area off the 300 line about 7 years ago. We dubbed him “white tips”. We scouted him for months before the season. He was hanging out so close to the gate I was for sure someone else would be on to him. Fast forward to early bow season and he’s still hanging in the same area. I guess other hunters figured no elk would be that close, we had him and his 9 cows all to ourselves. I was so hesitant to call to not alert other hunters to this stud of a bull.

We arived at the 4700 gate parking area round 5 am and started to unload our bikes and put our packs on. We made our way up the first hill and took a small break for my dad where the 4700 and the 300 meet. We were approached by another hunter. He asked us which direction we were heading when a bugle echoed the hills. I knew that was old white tips and I immediately thought the gig was up. To my surprise, the other hunter says something like, that guys starting a little early, he needs to practice a bit more. I just kind of smiled to myself and said yeah he does. He said he was going to continue up the 4700. We played with white tips for about 4 days but he wasn’t really interested in us and we didn’t push the issue. Our season was winding down so we came up with a plan of attack for the morning. We had enough and agreed we were going to put pressure on him the next morning.

That morning was so foggy, foggy like only coweeman can produce, anyone who has hunted there knows what I’m talking about. We take off on our bikes at 0 dark thirty. We slowly work our way into his living room with the help of the thick fog and wait for the sun to come up. At first light we see some cows starting to feed in our direction. We sit patiently waiting, in a drainage ditch for Mr. white tips to show himself. Next thing you know here he comes strutting out of the woods into the small secluded clearcut. He lets one rip, by this time the fog started to burn off and blue sky’s started to poke through and you could see his hot breath in the cold morning air. We watched them feed and him scream his head off. I was having mixed emotions, with every bugle I cringed and then smiled. I was wishing he would stop so another hunter wouldn’t move in on him. They finally headed back into the timbers. Everything is working to plan. We slowly push forward, stopping and waiting every 20 yards or so. We get to the timber line and kneel down to listen and my phone buzzes, it’s my wife. She knows not to call in the mornings during elk season, I knew something must be wrong. I answered and whispered hello, she informs me she had a fire at her work and they had to evacuate the building. I calmly listen to her story, then I asked so you’re 100% fine and she replies yes. I then said I’m on a big bull I’ll call you back when I can.

We finally got a good set up on him, we could hear the herd chatter. We were in his comfort zone. This was it, he was either going to fight or flight. I hit him with lip bawl, he immediately answered back cutting me off. To which I immediately responded with a chuckle and raking the crap out of a tree. We screamed back and forth for about 20 mins then he lets out a nervous grunt. I wait about 30 seconds and respond back with a no, you show yourself grunt. Then the woods went silent, I knew that meant, he either was pushing his cows away or he was coming in stealth to check me out. I felt we were in to close for him not to check us out. I continued raking, huffing and chuckling. Next thing you know, you see this 7x7 rack turn completely horizontal to fit his antlers between two trees. I’m about 30 yards behind the shooter, the bull is walking broadside right past my dad. I hit him with a cow call and he stops in his tracks. I later find out the bull stopped at 18 yards. My dad must of got elk fever or something, he shot right underneath him and the bull busted off. We were dumb founded and dejected. We still talk about it to this day.

 I took a buddy back during muzzy season and he was in the same spot. Put a stalk on him and cow called him in to 30 yards. My buddy was set up on shooting sticks and he squeezes the trigger to only have the cap go off, a muzzloaders worst nightmare. That was the last I seeen of old white tips. It just wasn’t meant to be.