I
t was a simple plan, but like any
plan it relied on all parties being
informed. In this case no one told
the elk. No one told them they
were supposed to move more slowly
through this alfalfa field, that they were
supposed to hop the fence to the neigh-
boring property only after first light. It
was the only way we could accurately
identify the herd bull then line up a shot
on the monarch.
Now, as we stared at an empty field
only an hour or so after legal shooting
light first shined from the east, Fred
Eichler used geography to map our
strategy.
“The elk move across my field from
west-to-east,” he said. “Once they get to
that corner,” he said, pointing southeast,
“they hop the fence and go lay up on the
neighbor’s ranch until evening, when
they come back this way. In the evenings,
we’ll set up on the other side, where we
can see them coming this way from
that hill,” he said, pointing again to the
southeast. “From there, shots are closer
than they will be if we stay here in the
evening. I’ve been keeping an eye on
them all fall. There’s a good bull among
them—in fact there’s more than one
good bull. They usually hang around this
field longer after the sun rises, but not
this morning, obviously.”
I couldn’t disagree with the plan,
especially as I cast an eye toward snow-
capped mountains miles to our west.
Normally, a Colorado elk hunt—any elk
hunt, really—means entering such hills. I
don’t mind such excursions. Elk hunting
does, after all, expose us to perhaps the
most beautiful landscapes of America.
This was more like deer hunting, what
with the patterning of the critters and
the agriculture all around us. I could get
used to it.
The good news was it was only day
one of a five-day hunt. We’d have plenty
more opportunities to see this plan
through, to hunt elk like deer from this
field at dawn or from yonder hill at dusk.
But the plan was in fact a one-shot deal.
We needed elk to cooperate. If they
moved too quickly at dawn, they moved
too slowly at dusk—they appeared well
before dark but they took forever to
return to our side of the fence before
legal shooting light faded.
Fortunately, these 2,500 acres of south-
east Colorado supplied plenty of other
entertainment for me and Neil Davies,
marketing director of Hornady Manufac-
turing, who’d enticed me to come here to
wring out his company’s new brainchild,
the .300 Precision Rifle Cartridge (PRC).
We were hunting with Fred and Michele
Eichler, who for years have lived at andrun Fulldraw Outfitters in Aguilar, Colo.,
with their kids. Not long ago they pur-
chased this 2,500-acre beauty of a spread,
less than an hour east of their home base;
now they have Fulldraw West and Full-
draw East (fulldrawoutfitters.com).
To say this eastern spread never failed
to disappoint is putting it mildly.
In only a week I saw most game one
could find in Colorado—elk, whitetails,
mule deer, pronghorns, quail, pheas-
ants, waterfowl, coyotes, even a bobcat. I
didn’t see a black bear but Fred described
at least one bruin that made frequent
appearances at his neighbor’s (“She
leaves pies in the window to cool—of
course bears are attracted!”); and I didn’t
see a mountain lion because, well ... I’ve
never seen a mountain lion.
No wonder Fred and Michele were
attracted to this place even though their
outfitting business was doing just fine
with the western spread only miles away.
What’s more, they explained, one field
on the ranch must’ve been the site hun-
dreds of years ago of a Native American
encampment. Their family enjoyed scour-
ing it to discover artifacts, especially right
after it was plowed. There they’d found in
the past arrowheads, spear points, manos
(rolling pins), metates (mealing stones)
and more; the physical evidence could be
seen in their lodge.americanhunter.org ❘ 57 ❘ august 2019
Photo: Donald M. Jones / DonaldMJones.com