Kremmling – Hold the sonata. The magic of moonlight, at least as it applies to Colorado elk hunters in places marked by black timber, is vastly overrated.
The scenario during last weekend’s opening of the elk-only rifle season went something like this:
With a full moon beaming down, elk spent an evening of leisurely grazing, not the least troubled by the eager horde of hunters tossing restlessly in campgrounds nearby. The animals munched contentedly on rich green grass that remains in moist places along the fringe of the dark forest.
Sometime before daybreak, having eaten their fill, elk retreated deeper into the woods to hiding places in the most dense timber, picking their teeth amid occasional happy burping sounds.
This left hunters with little choice but to plunge into these thickets, scurrying over fallen logs and, on this peculiar occasion, hop- scotching through an intricate pattern of snow. More on that later. Cutting straight to the chase, the result was predictable enough – plenty of exercise and a certain amount of excitement, mostly from fleeting glances of elk kneecaps dis- appearing through the trees.
Purely from a tactical standpoint, perhaps the most interesting aspect of this limited-license, elk-only season was that most of the licenses issued for northwest Colorado were for either sex. While appearing to be a big advantage, this liberal allotment actually turned into something of a curse.
Take the case of Steve Yamashita, who hunted with his son, Matt, in the sprawling Game Management Unit 28 south of Kremmling. The elder Yamashita was rewarded by a parade of cow elk within easy range.
But it was early in the hunt and he had heard a bull bugling close by. Dreaming that a trophy rack might soon follow the cows, he kept his finger off the trigger. Big mistake. Three days later, he never got another chance. Sometimes, an excess of choices isn’t a good thing.
This latest experiment with either-sex license also raises the spectre of the 1998 season, when the Division of Wildlife allocated many thousands of such tags over the counter. The most conspicuous result was the accidental kill of numerous spike bulls and several moose by hunters who shot at the first hair they saw and sorted out the bodies later.
It remains to be seen whether the same happened this year and, if so, whether DOW again will experiment with either-sex licenses on large scale.
Much of the difficulty of opening weekend resided in the aftermath of a considerable snowfall the week before.
An intervening spell of warm weather caused much of the snow to melt at the middle elevations, leaving a crazy quilt of brown and white, like a mad artist swinging a brush with splashes and splotches.
Melting by day, refreezing at night, the snow caused hunters to meander among the soft brown spots, occasionally plowing through crusted snow that sounded like a stroll through a bowl of Cap’n Crunch.
The attraction of this first rifle season lies in the opportunity to stroll through a forest still rife with the rich sights and sounds of fading autumn: golden aspen leaves, the chirring of pine squirrels, raucous jays, the musty sweetness of decaying leaves and, best of all, the occasional bugles of bulls unwilling to accept that mating time is done.
One such amorous wailing revealed the hiding place of a bull where an aspen thicket trailed off into dark spruce. Tiptoeing through a zebra stripe of shadows, a hunter approached within 30 yards of the lone animal that, naturally, was bedded down in the thickest timber. With a great clatter, the bull galloped off through the trees, showing just enough flash of antler to make the heart jump.
It was a scene repeated often during these early days of the rifle season among hunters resigned to beating the bushes for moonbeam elk. For most, the music never played.
Listen to Charlie Meyers at 9 a.m. each Saturday on “The Fan Outdoors” on KKFN 950 AM. He can be reached at 303-820-1609 or cmeyers@denverpost.com.
