Any treasures found during your Elk hunt
Elk
I found this young moose skull.
Found several years ago in NM during a hunt on private land.
I found a claw hammer while sneaking around some elk the other day. Found a leghold trap yesterday.
I found a six inch tine from another bull broke off in the back of the neck of the bull I shot. Couldn't imagine the pressure that had to applied to break that off in the bull.
Found a very old 30-30 Winchester 94 in sw Montana about 1999 or so.
Wife found this hanging in a pine tree 2 years ago
It would make for a better story if it was still lit when she found it, old goat ;-)
Not elk hunting, but some buddies cleaned up pretty good bow hunting out in SD last week.
Found on a big butte while antelope hunting. There has been alot of artifacts in the area but nobody knows what it was used for?
Lots of cool stuff above. The neatest thing I found was an old wooden "Coors" keg. "Adolf Coors" and the year was engraved on the top of it. All the pieces were in a pile and I had no idea how to put it together so sold it on Craigslist. I bet it would make a great addition to a man-cave!
Wow, some crazy cool stuff guys! Awesome!
I just found a sawzaw hanging in a tree while elk hunting in NM
Found this in the remains of an old cabin...
I found this steam engine middle of nowhere, not even any remote sign of abandoned road. No idea how old timers got it there or what its purpose was.
Rock found in a creek sw Montana. Found a turquoise one this year that glows!!!! Not fluorescent.
Smarba,
I've seen a couple of those boilers near old gold mines. Not sure what they were used for, exactly
We find a lot of Anasazi pottery shards in NW NM. Some has the classic black ink painting.
Our neighbor found a flashlight one time near the border with the National Forest but on his property. He opened it up and it was stuffed full of marijuana.
Many many years ago, I was sitting on a log watching a stream bottom on the Olympic Peninsula, when I found a straight blade knife stuck in the log next to me. It looked like it had been there a long time and it was cool to know that some other hunter at some time had also used that log as a place to sit and wait for elk.
There are some awesome treasures here! I need to look around and figure out where some of my treasures are located. We've encountered some pretty awesome stuff in the woods in the short few years we've been doing this. For now, on my last trip in to retrieve my bull's head I came across these...two deadheads about 15' apart. I was so gassed from packing meat out all night and on such little sleep I didn't even consider packing these out. I have them marked on GPS and hope they are still there in the late spring. We're planning a shed hunt and to change out SD cards and batteries. :) They'll look great hanging out back!
Found a tree saw down in the bottom of this godforsaken hole in Idaho. I don't know how or why.
Notched Bear Tooth Northern New Zmexico
Notched Bear Tooth Northern New Zmexico
What's amazing is that the last person to touch this tooth was an American Indian wearing it around his Neck. It's very old.
What's amazing is that the last person to touch this tooth was an American Indian wearing it around his Neck. It's very old.
When we were running the skid steer we accidentally scooped this up.
When I build my cabin next spring it will get hung up.
One other time I was scouting I looked down and there was a sharpening stone.
This was all for whitetail not elk
2 years ago I found a thermacell about a mile in from the road - looked like a bear had chewed on it. Fired it up and it works.
I think Bigern's rock may just be the damndest thing I ever saw...
What the heck is that???
I found a s&w .45 revolver a couple miles back in some dead fall. I'm sure it was someone's sidearm. Unfortunately It was out in the elements for at least a year and was rusted in all the wrong spots. I left it out there.
Amazing stuff some of you guys have picked up out there!
Have to ask about that rock Bigfern found as well. Really amazing whatever it is!
Those old boilers were typically used to stay warm at the surface mine buildings. Have seen then from southern Arizona all the way up into Wyoming. Tons of those around Leadville. Really cool to poke around, but got to be careful of hidden shafts in some of that swiss-cheese country! Got to be crazy to dig holes trying to get rich...
Have found some cool stuff over the years and wish I had pictures of all of it. Years ago hunting in northern NM, found a pile of pottery shards and lots of perfect obsidian arrowheads. Found hand bones and some unbroken jars in a cave on a cliff in the Gila years ago. Found some old military cartridges and arrowheads down in S NM and Arizona around the area that Geronimo was finally captured. Found a camera sitting on a rock in NM (back in the old days) - developed the film and saw some crazy shots of a gal getting really in touch with nature! Found a crashed airplane way back in the Gila. Amazing what is out there when you spend a little time on foot in the middle of nowhere!
Treeline, we too have found some obsidian (volcanic glass). Due to it being an igneous rock, the source is easy to identify. They can actually source artifacts to locations hundreds of miles away--indicating trading between tribes or a large home range of the native inhabitants.
Treeline, you should post those pictures, you know, to find the cameras owner.
I know I'm getting old, forgot about a couple old finds till I saw some of the other pics and thought, oh, yeah! Wish we could post multiple pics per post on here, found this car and nearby a single bit plow in a clearing with the almost completely rotted away remnants of a log building
Cool stuff guys!
I found this in NM several years ago...
Think this is the remnants of a steam powered saw mill or similar as their are pieces of bull gear etc around and piping with a water source in the form of a stream right next to it, this was in the Gore Wilderness area
Found a bastard file stuck in a tree back in 2007 while elk hunting in unit 551. It looked to be a 14-15" file. The evergreen it was stuck in had grown around it and there was about 5" sticking out. Just by chance, we stopped to rest by this one tree of many, and there it was approximately 8 feet up sticking out. Crazy.
Cool thread!
oldgoat,
You can post up to 4 photos per post. After you post the first one, just click "Edit" on the green bar above the photo. It will allow you to add 3 more photos one at a time.
Found this on my 50th birthday, 9/24/2010. I had lost my girlfriend a short time before to cancer. Her favorite color was purple and she wasn't going to miss my 50th birthday. She also sent me a bull at the same time I was picking up this balloon but my eyes were so full of tears that I messed it up...
One of Treeline's aforementioned mine shafts...
Mining claim in MT. Tried to look at the writing but the paper was amazingly brittle so I put it back.
Amoebus - that's ultra cool
Hessticles see how it works?
When one hole gets too big they make another on this one of mine from shawnee land in southern illinois.
Ok, what is it? Quartz and a chapstick for reference.
Bigern that is a drill. And turquoise .
wild buffalo horn found in remote colo high country. 130 plus years old?
wild buffalo horn found in remote colo high country. 130 plus years old?
I found this buffalo horn partially buried deep in the buffalo peaks wilderness in colo this year .
Tuquoise was trade item along with obsideon.
Old goat, that lantern is a great find.
Mike, amazing stuff.
I really enjoy this thread.
Thanks for sharing all!
In shadows
In shadows
Pete, thanks....I hope it's not radioactive lol
Bigern, I think your "Turquoise" is actually Gem Silica. Gem Silica can be phosphorescent, which means it glows after you turn out the lights. Your stone is also cleaner and more translucent than turquoise. Gem Silica is also worth more.
http://geology.com/gemstones/blue-gemstones/ Here is an example that looks similar to yours though this one has some impurities https://www.etsy.com/listing/544015830/14ct-gem-silica-chrysocolla-free-form?ref=sold_out-4
Old Goat, The picture of car is special. It is located near South Fork, Colorado.
Bigfern, that it totally awesome! Whatever it is. I would worry about radioactivity and get it checked.
That other rock you found is also amazing. Whatever it is! Aliens????
Dave, I worked at Climax for many years. The mine property was at the junction of the Arkansas River, Tenmile Creek, and the Eagle River. We found some amazing points and several buffalo skulls up there excavating for various projects - even after that country had been mined like hell for about 100 years.
Also found buffalo remains and points/knives/drills up on Weston Pass. Several little drainages keep turning that stuff up every year up there. Marv Clynke was always finding awesome points and stuff up there. There are actually rock piles up along the ridge between 4-mile and 12-mile at over 12,000' that are most likely blinds for hunting that have been up there for thousands of years.
Amazing that those artifacts were up above 11,500'. That buffalo horn is more likely thousands of years old - far older than 130 years for sure.
Great stuff, and glad you took the time to photograph.
Still wondering what that device was in Cheesehead’s earlier post.... part of a radio-tracking device, maybe??
Somebody hunted the trail I was on way before I did.
I found my old tree stand I made before I had a gps. Sometime in the 90s
GF,
I think it's part of a weather balloon or something...
Pete Drummond these were not holes it seemed to be dots made from paint
The stone seems to curve if you flip it over it nestles in your palm could be a hammer used for everything from cracking nuts, getting to marrow and everthing else.
Stumbled upon this cabin pretty deep in dark timber while scouting last year in CO. I still have no idea how they got this furnace/stove in here as it seems there is no real way to get there. Thought about hunting out of it some year but it is not very friendly to get to
This is a great thread, thanks guys.
Backcountry,
I would hunt out of it just so I could say I did! Cool stuff guys.
Bigern, Sometimes I'm too subtle. So I'm going to post again in a more straightforward manner: Your glowing stone is a Gem Silica and could be worth more than $5000.00. Possibly a lot more.
Top quality Gem silica is worth $50 to $200 per carat. There are 141.7 carats in an ounce. Weigh your stone & do some math. Your stone looks to be very high quality. Take it to a trusted gem expert for an appraisal. Never sell to the appraiser. An appraiser who offers to buy is lowballing the appraisal. Low end jewelry stones will not be familiar with gem silica. It's typically only found in high end jewelry stores.
And the radioactivity stuff is B.S. People have been watching too many movies. Radioactive radiation is not visible, it doesn't glow. Visible light is not radioactive radiation. Your stone is phosphorescent which is very cool and not at all dangerous.
Backcountrymuzzy, Kyle, that cabin looks like it hasn't been too long since someone was using it. Is this the only time you have been there? The wood cook stove looks a lot like the one my grandmother use to cook on in summer months. The Coleman lantern looks like it wasn't sitting to long since it was used, don't even see much dust on it.
Found while looking for sheds. No one can tell me what it is. It's not glass or quartz. It scratches easily. My best guess is melted plastic? It's very sharp on the edges, and parts of it are crystal clear. I think it's really cool and now sits in my living room as a trophy and memory
Don’t have a picture of it, but it was funny....
We were slogging up a really steep ridge west of Ft. Collins on of those ones that’s damn near brown on a topo map. We’d been sticking to the Elk trail and just climbing and climbing and climbing. Stopped for a breather and looked up a bit....
Nailed to a tree was a small sign, fairly neatly lettered:
Up
And an arrow pointed skyward. Why anybody would take the time to do that, I have no idea, but it cracked us all up.
BTW - I was noticing that that woodstove looks almost brand new...
I've never found any "treasure".... last year in AZ found a belt with what looked like a folding knife sheath sewn into it. The leather was pretty bad, but figured I'd pick it up and check out the knife back in camp. Had to cut away the sewing to open the "sheath" and turns out it wasn't a knife but a Personal Locator Beacon. A few days later at a motel I opened it up. Battery looked pretty sketchy and some corrosion inside, wound up disconnecting the battery and tossing it all.
If you have a PLB sewn into your belt.... make sure you put your belt back on after doing what ever it was you took it off for.......
WRT "treasure"..... a guy I know found a pair of swarovski binos in MT in the middle of nowhere. He swears he drove around camp to camp asking if anyone was missing something..... cross his heart and hope to die......
My son found a tracking collar this year. Turned in to Fish and Wildlife at Salida, CO. A week or so later they called and told us it was from a elk collared in the mid '90s. We did not get a picture. We thought they would not want it back and we were going to put in our hunting cabin in KY.
This is an awesome thread. Some very cool finds for sure.
found an old old box call in NM about 8,000'
great thread, really makes you think about the history of that stuff
Found a photo of what we called a "Hobbit House" since the door was only about 3'-6" tall. I have other photos but I have to do some more digging.
Love this thread. Some really cool stuff found here. Not an elk hunt, but a hunt... Old gun off the wingtip of a fighter...
Northern tier NY. Someone uses for watch...
Found an old barn and this was lying on the floor.
Found an old barn and this was lying on the floor.
Grill at an old campsite.
Found in Zoar Valley, NY.
Found this across the road when out scouting a couple weeks ago. Hopeully foretells of a nice 5x5 this season...wishful thinking. :)
I'm sure this was a treasure to someone at the time. In the middle of nowhere
Les and I found this in WY in 2014
Anybody lose a Sitka T-shirt in CO?
Grunter,
That rock thing that you found could be from electricity contacting the ground. Under the right conditions when a powerline breaks and the line hits the ground it will contact rocks and dirt and turn them into glass. It's easy to scratch and crumble, but the overall object is pretty solid. Lightning can cause the same thing. Typically lightning contacts tall objects so it's rare for it to hit rocks, but when it does and the ground is damp or wet it will turn the rocks and dirt to glass. I think that may be what you have.
Last year I had a WY General elk tag that I didn't fill during archery season so I went back out with my rifle. I stumbled across this nice buck that I believe had just been shot the evening before (I heard the shot). I had every intention of asking around the trailhead to see if I could find the hunter but that evening a big snow storm hit and chased me out of the mountains...
Caution......those finding artifacts on public ground may want to leave them where you found them or not tell anyone (or post) about taking them home with you. Fines can be substantial. You can be banned from public lands. FYI
I subscribe to catch and release for that reason.
Neat old Buick truck back in the woods.....rare vehicle.
Found this unlucky bull in Montana this fall.
TrapperKayak, that looks more like a brick lined latrine or possibly a brick lined well, instead of a chimney base. Cool thread.
Brian, that could very well be. I thought since it was adjacent to an old industrial area it might be. It is kind of small for an industrial factory smoke stack though. Probably a well or latrine like you said. Cheesehead, that is the next best way to bringing one home if you don't happen to score. Too bad you didn't get to keep the mulie. I found one once that I had to leave too.
All these were found on private property I'm sure
Found a dead bull, lek shed, and small moose shed.
Cheesehead Mike.... did that mulie buck have something funky going on with his nose? Looks like the bridge of his nose is, or was broken. Might possibly just be the way it looks in the pic?
Lots of sheds, skulls/antlers, cool rocks, a few purpled bottles. Left a few offerings after successful hunts too. Like my old buffalo horn and antelope horn
I found this knife twice. The first time I camped and elk hunted in one of Colorado's Wilderness areas two years ago, I found this knife within yards of where I had camped but then just stuck it in a log nearby by but out of sight. Two years later, this season, while wandering around the same remote camp area, I found it on the ground.. This time I brought it home.
Pretty cool stuff. Here's an old stove.
this is a really great thread. Such cool things to be found out there
TrapperKayak, that is not a gun, that is a rocket pod for folding fin rockets. Probably off a F-86 (1950's or earlier)
Terry
I found both of these sheds of a bull I killed the previous year. They were in a draw not 3-400 yards from where I killed him. Thought that was cool.
Found these 2 knifes on separate elk hunts. Top one I found in 2011 in AZ. The bottom one I found in 2014 on a hunt in UT. I have thought about restoring them but not sure I possess the expertise and more importantly the patience to do so. Maybe when I retire.
t-roy,
No there was nothing wrong with the buck other than a broken tine and a bullet hole through the rib cage.
deerhaven,
I believe I have a knife like the top one in your photo. It's a Western brand, I bought it new in the '70s and I used it for years to gut and butcher my deer. It's in really good shape other than some staining on the blade. I even still have the original box. I've kind of retired it now...
I don't know, that rocket pod is a pretty sweet piece of history! Having spent most of my adult life in Naval Aviation, that's cool, even if it probably is off a chairforce bird!
My son and I found this old car in the middle of the woods on a spring turkey hunt.
Found in Unit 61 Colorado, 2013. Off Hank's Valley Road. In a tall oak patch.
Front pic of camera found in Unit 61.
Ultralight crash.
Ultralight crash.
Ultralight crash.
Ultralight crash.
Terry, thanks for clarifying that on the rocket pod. I wasn't really sure if it was a 'gun' but I wasn't sure what kind of projectiles it fired.
Some of the goods from this year.
Looks like my mother in law crashed her broom...
Oh Lark that is hilarious!!!
Lark- So you MIL flys an ultralight broom also! LOL!
Found in a tree on the side of a mountain in Colorado. No roads anywhere around . It's trim from a vehicle.
On a turkey hunt in Kansas. No roads anywhere going to or from this old farm house.
Old sheep herders cabin in Colorado
On a mule deer hunt in Utah we were checking out and old gold mine. remains of small cabins/ sheds and such. While looking thru one of the cabins my buddy found a sterling silver pipe which was late id'ed as and opium pipe. Forest Service told us that after the Trans Con railroad was completed a lot of the workers were moved to the gold fields. They were sometimes paid in opium
Definitely keep this one going. I have enjoyed reading this more than most, in a while.
I don't believe it has to be solely an elk hunt find, but areas that hold elk, do seem more conducive to producing "interesting treasures" due to their remote nature. Carry on.
I'll bet that POS chainsaw was found exactly where the owner threw it........
Petrified stumps
Petrified stumps
Here are some old petrified stumps where I chase elk in south central Montana. There are about 20 or so in a small area. Magical place.
I once found a Wells Fargo credit card barely poking out of the dirt in a remote area of SW Colorado. When I got home to PA I called WF and they could not find the name or account number in their system. After much discussion on their end of the line they determined it to be counterfeit and told me to destroy it. Very strange place to find a lost credit card.
From Wyoming in the Bighorns. Loggers had stacked up a pile of logs and this one caught my eye. Sent a picture of it to my wife while I was hunting and said, "Thinking of you". She liked...
Not strange - it was Wells Fargo! ;o)
I've come across a lot of skulls/old kills, but have found no artifacts or gear. Though as a kid, I did find a bunch of arrow & spearheads near a construction site.
Cool thread - keep it going.
My elk hunt this year was just with my camera. But I found this bull early one morning just calling for some attention!
Of course I gave it to him!
Have a great bohwunt. BB
Kansas pheasant hunting, not elk hunting, but found these jugs in the truck of am old car. Moonshine jugs Maybe? :)
Great thread, I love finding old stuff in the woods.
Grunter, I think that may be melted silica from a lighting strike..if so, very cool!
Wish I could post up some of the pornographic aspen carvings from the '30s and early '40s I've photographed in our area. Some amazing stuff but would surely get pulled!
Found a lot of these nuggets. Not gold, but they are valuable.
Found while looking for she'd antlers.
Found an old rusted muzzleloader tucked under the overhang of a boulder in the wilderness in CO. Wonder what the circumstances were. Packed out and gave it to a friend who was determined to "fix it up !"
