Last week I was off hunting in northwest Colorado. In some respects it was an excellent week. In others, it was a great disappointment.

Friends and I went out there with tags in hand to stay in a simple lodge, cook our own food and hunt public land. Simple, relatively inexpensive and hopefully effective.

I had acquired my tags as leftovers in August in Game Management Units 11/211, per the recommendations of CDOW personnel.

The first disappointment was the difficulty accessing public lands due to blocking private lands. Even roads on maps that entered public lands may be (probably are) blocked by private land owners from use.

Starting from our standard position that people are friendly and helpful, we stopped at a ranch to make sure that we did not trespass. Our reception was frigid. The only thing we were told is that the boundaries were well marked. In reality, the boundaries were clear as mud. We had the impression that we would not be told the time of day if we weren't customers.

Simple solutions to this problem were the Colorado State Trust Lands. Since many of their boundaries coincide with defined sections that are documented on BLM maps, combined with topo quads, they are relatively easily mapped.

We concentrated on the Pine Tree Gulch area, which is contiguous with a large track of private land. It even has a well defined parking area which is handy in an area of mostly private land.

This is when the fun started. The ranch to the south patrolled the road multiple times per day. They were paranoid we were going to hunt their land. It started before 7AM and went on until 6PM. On Wednesday they stopped and said that a group matching our description had been hunting their land on Tuesday. In fact, on Tuesday, we were changing hotels. It was clear that they did not want us hunting anywhere near their land. The harassment was serious enough that I spoke to the DOW people about hunter harassment laws.

It was easy to understand why. Pine Tree Gulch starts with an eastern rise to a ridge overlooking more of PTG and private land. What we observed was appalling.

• The elk were spending the majority of daylight hours bedded down. The outfitter to the south used ATVs to get the elk moving (a violation of law). Without this movement, the animals would have been difficult to locate by the hunters.
• Hunters were transported on side-by-sides with their guns loaded and on their hip. The law states that guns on ATVs must be unloaded and cased.

Additionally, we found tire tracks in the PTG. One map shows a road across it, but it is documented as an area prohibited to motor vehicles.

Conclussions:

• If you plan on hunting any area near private outfitters, know where you are at all times.
• Don't expect to talk to the outfitters until you are being accused of trespassing.
• Don't let the behavior of the large outfitters cloud your perception of the locals. Those in Meeker were friendly and were eager to help.
• The Meeker DOW office is staffed by friendly, helpful people. They were not surprised by what we described but, somehow, seemed hampered from effectively enforcing the law.

Recommendations:

• Collect maps, lots of maps. BLM and USGS topo quads, especially. If your quads don't have the UTM lines on them, get a straight edge and pencil and draw them in.
• Understand your GPS and the UTM system.
• Don't concentrate on the large public lands. They are packed with like minded hunters. Check out the smaller spaces surrounded by private land as they can be ignored by the majority of hunters and the animals feel less pressured on them.

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