Colorado OTC unit recommendations
Elk
Just a heads up. Since you've researched multiple other topics on here, you should have looked at how these types of posts are typically responded to. I'd delete this one and try a different tact.
Throw a dart at the map. Or just pick one that looks good to you. Then you have spend some time in it and learn it. If anyone has a favorite otc unit, or area they aren't going to share it here.
Get some maps, look at Google Earth, find half a dozen areas in your chosen unit, and go burn some boot leather. Success in those areas is hard earned, unless you are lucky.
Hunt the same area every year, or as much as you can and you'll start to figure it out.
You can nose around in the elk forums here and pick up all kinds of tips about what to look for.
Good luck!
Thanks patdel.I have been researching units and will be going from there.
Remember that deer are a lot more susceptible to bad winters than elk. It takes a bad one to really knock the elk down. So, I think you will be fine in the area you mentioned. If you have any doubts, call the DOW office in that area and ask how the elk have made it through the winter. If your partner has already hunted an area, I would stick with that.
pick a couple units and take a summer scout trip. I tried a new OTC unit last year. I drove out in July and scouted. Found a bunch of elk which really reduced my pre hunt anxiety. Come season elk contact every day including a missed 5x5 the first 35 min of the season and success on day 5. Theres elk in the OTC units you just have to find em. If you don't go scout you just have to put up with the preseason I don't know my area stress until your first time on the ground in the unit of choice
Thanks for all the info guys. Looking forward to this for the first time.
I don't necessarily subscribe to the idea of hunting the same unit year after year. I like to move around and explore new country. If you chose a bad area to start with and you never go anywhere else, you might end up spending multiple years in an area that is not very good. You'll never know if you don't explore. But once you find a good area, it definitely helps to hunt it again.
This probably goes against conventional wisdom, but my success rate is actually higher the first time I hunt a unit than it is on return trips. That might be partially due to the fact that I have a totally open mind the first time in and I spend a lot of time looking for elk until I find them. Once I have experience in a unit I might spend too much time going back to areas I found them in the past rather than covering new ground until I find them. That might be one of the negatives of hunting the same unit over and over.
I'm sorta with Mike on this one, but it depends on a number of variables. I've been hunting (learning) a totally new area for the past three seasons. It has a low elk density and is pretty rugged, and the elk move a lot regardless of pressure. It's also heavily-timbered so glassing isn't much of an option. Most of my higher-percentage (for mature bull encounters) spots have been found by moving around during the season and figuring out where others are hunting, not from preseason scouting which I can do all summer. I am guilty of spending too many times hunting where I found them before and they aren't there, but I've also found places where they are maybe there 3 out of 5 times, which is good for this particular unit.
I hunt it because the hunter density is also low and there are big bulls because so few get killed, even during rifle seasons. The biologist told me the age classes of bulls average a couple years higher here than in most other areas except the high-point draw units.
In my old area that had a much higher elk density, the elk tended to use the same ridges and drainages year after year for decades. So learning the micro-habitats payed-off because if elk were occupying a certain drainage I knew where they bedded, how the thermals worked morning and evening, preferred travel paths between feeding and bedding, etc.. They also stayed around unless bumped by hunting pressure.
So it all depends on where you're hunting.
