Coldest elk hunt

[Lefty]

Saddle sores pic just looked cold

Whats the coldest temps you have elk hunted in ,.. or maybe the worst conditions, Storm, Blizzard High winds

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On my 2nd Montana hunt I did see it was -18 before i left camp, I was told it got down to -22. I had new gloves and they just werent enough to keep my trigger finger warm.

Ive hunted geese when it was -22. the neighbor has a "real weather station. The geese came in fast and easy. But the steam coming out of the pit glowed in the sunlight as soon as the sun cleared the mountains, that was kind of neat. Even the dog wanted back home, well sorta
Ive slept outside with young Boyscouts in -10 . The boys slept. I worried. A scout tent came along but no poles. The State of Utah had bought a ranch that still had the remnants of baled hay. 3 pickup loads of hay and the boys made a nest of hay The wiggled out if too war, wiggled in if feeling cool.
Had set an early season coyote line in Northern Minnesota and got a big unexpected snowfall . the inside of the tent was sealing its self off with ice and frost.

There has got to be some great camp stories

[Swede]

I went on a late season cow hunt in subzero weather, but the coldest I ever got was on a late season deer hunt in western Oregon when it was raining. It was damp all of the time and my friend and I could never get warm. We had a tent with no heater. We cooked out in the rain and hunted in the rain. Mostly it was miserable.

[saddlesore]

The only time I went on a guided hunt was in Alberta . A week before Thanksgiving. Since they don't celebrate that holiday in Canada, I got a break.However it was 25 below all week and warmed up to freezing the day I left.

The top photo of the two wasn't all that cold but it was the year Colorado offered three elk tags. Two of us killed 4 elk opening day of third season and had one tag each left for 4th season. It would not quite snowing.If it wasn't for two Humvees and a skid loader that pulled a big tank truck out we would have been snowed in. After they got out we chained up all 4 wheels on two dodge diesels and chained them together then pulled the empty stock trailers out one at. Then we went back in and got the stock and camp. Ponied 4 mules and a horse out tied to the back of a truck for about 8miles. We did get the 4 elk out before that but a half dozen bald eagles ate one entire hind quarter and loin.Never did get to hunt for that 4th season though.

The second photo ,I don't think it got to 20 above in ten days.The bigger tent was a 16 x 22 and we got four mules in there with four of us to protect them as there were no trees around.The other three mules we had to double blanket them and switch off with the mules in the tent.We had two100pound propane tanks in there with a propane heater and two Kerosun heaters in the other tent. We were all pretty gamey by the end of the hunt. I think we killed three elk for 6 of us.

[saddlesore]

Not an elk hunt but, the only time I went duck hunting in Colorado was in mid January. Large chunks of ice were floating down the Arkansas river..I was setting decoys out and didn't see a submerged barbwire fence. It ripped my waders and one filled with water. Barely made it out of the water with that one wader filled and had to get help to make it back to the truck.I don't know how cold it was ,but that was the coldest I have ever been. I learned all I needed to know about duck hunting right then.

[Mathewsz7-elkridge]

Negative 20 one morning this rifle season. Thank god for kuiu!!! The afternoon before I really don’t know how cold the wind chill was weather said possible-35 once the wind started to pick up I high tailed it down that mountain! I was a struggle this year to keep liquids thawed. I had hand warms and shirts wrapped around water bottles. Hydration tube would freeze in no time even blowing back in.

[Swede]

Vince you explained how you rotated mules in the tent, but you forgot to tell us about how you rotated on use of the cot.

[saddlesore]

Vince you explained how you rotated mules in the tent, but you forgot to tell us about how you rotated on use of the cot.

I kept the cot way in the back next to the heater. Brother was a little irritated from one mule that wanted to lick his face.Finally had to put a rope across the front part of the tent to keep the mules on their side

When you are young,you sure do a lot of stupid things.

[Swede]

So with that rope across the tent, the mules did not get to nap on the cots even during the day time when you and your brother were out hunting. That seems rather selfish on your part.

[saddlesore]

Yea,I guess it was.Maybe that was the problem. They seemed to get irritated every morning when we saddled up and took them with us. I could tell a lot of stories about that hunt for sure.

[Lefty]

When you are young,you sure do a lot of stupid things.

[Tigger]

Coldest hunt was pheasant hunting in North Dakota. Actual air temp was -26. After the first walk, I had to take off my coat as I was too hot and you do NOT want to sweat at -26. For pheasant hunting I have a rule that has served me well. If you are cold at the truck getting ready, you are dressed right. If you are not cold, you have too many clothes on and better take some off. But not all! Do NOT take ALL of your clothes off. There could be thistles out there.

Deer hunting I have had some cold sits. Ironically, most of the times I was the coldest were not the coldest air temps. Wet, wind, humidity all play a huge role. Especially if you aren't dressed quite right.

[Trumkin the Dwarf]

I've hunted in -16 for ducks. That's the coldest cause you're sitting still, trying to keep enough mobility in your hands to pull the trigger when they come in.

I do remember one evening hunt where my grandpa and I doubled up on cow elk. It was 20 degrees when we finished gutting them, and started dragging (it was a mile or so, all downhill to the truck, with 1-2 feet of snow). By the time we got to the truck the wind was blowing 30 mph, and the thermometer read -25. Funnily enough, we didn't feel cold until we had to leave the elk and walk down the road a quarter mile to get the rig.

[Magic]

No pictures but the memories are "frozen" into our minds. 1993, I was 50 and Marty was 25 so this was sort of an event for us. Grand Mesa, CO, first season Elk. We got into a herd and saw a bull the first morning but no shot. The snow began about 10:00 and we decided to start making the 3 mile trip back to camp just in case things got worse. Well worse did happen, and by evening we were shoveling snow at our tent camp. We had a rope stretched between two trees with a tarp to protect our tent, good thing! Our water supply was a 5 gallon Gott water cask so we were safe there. Our planned meals were the original MRE's. That night the snow load tested our rope and even though the tarp was now pressing down on the tent, it held. The next morning we had big time shoveling duties.

We quickly found out that you can not walk/hunt in over knee high show, you can not get water from a frozen solid Gott, and the MRE's were no good without water, plus no drinking water, coffee, nor hot chocolate. Breaking a frozen camp is a chore.

We vowed to hunt again when I was 75 and he was 50. Well we made several successful Elk hunts between that time, and we did make the "anniversary" hunt in 2018. No Elk, but it was a highly successful hunt together. That plus we did not freeze.

[Pop-r]

-15°

[WapitiTalk1]

I'm trying to block "them" out right now; I've had a few. Several weren't the coldest if you measure the temperature, but, cold and wet enough to put a stupid hunter on the edge of hypothermia.... I'll get one such story up in a bit.

[WapitiTalk1]

I remember one time/hunt in the late 70s/perhaps very early 80s (NW Montana/third week in September) where a buddy and I grabbed our bows and headed into a high place with our quality gear in our packs (a cheapo two person pack tent, thin down sleep bags, enough doughnuts, candy bars, chips, and maybe a couple of bottles of soda to get us by for two nights) and headed out on a Friday night after work. We hiked the switch back up, up, and up trail in till it ends (probably about 3 miles), found our spot, set up our tent, and excitedly walked over to "the edge" of the canyon to do some locate bugling. I did not have to deploy my super awesome PVC bugle tube to solicit an answer as the canyon/basin below was literally screaming with elk. OK, by now it's well past dark so we hit the tent for a restless night's sleep with the sounds of the elk echoing off in the distance. At some point in the middle of the night, the snow came and it came large! The tent completely collapsed under the weight of the wet snow, started leaking through, and eventually soaked through our flimsy down bags. No problem; we're young and full of it! Up at the crack of dawn we roughly re-set up the tent and off down, down, down the side of the canyon we went to the singing bulls that were luring us. Wasn't too bad going down as we slid most of the way in the foot plus of snow. After we chased a few bugles around that morning with no shots we started thinking about getting back up that steep, snowy hillside to camp and perhaps, getting a fire going to dry our soaked clothes and bodies (it snowed all that day; heavy wet snow). It literally took us hours to get back up the hillside (using huckleberry brush and U brush as helping handles to grab and ascend up and not slide back down). That was an adventure in itself; I was really worried we could not get up that hillside. Once at camp, there wasn't a dry match in the mix so we eventually just crawled into our wet bags, with our wet clothes, and tried to get warm and sleep. Neither happened and we both shivered all night and, the tent collapsed yet again. We discussed getting "outa there" at some point that night but I'm pretty sure our old D powered flashlights were about spent after a few nights of using them and pretty sure we couldn't find the trail in the dark/snow. At the crack of dawn, we stuffed everything we had into our old packs and "ran/slid" down the snowy trail to the truck. That was not a fun night in the elk woods.

[Trumkin the Dwarf]

I remember one time/hunt in the late 70s/perhaps very early 80s (NW Montana/third week in September) where a buddy and I grabbed our bows and headed into a high place with our quality gear in our packs (a cheapo two person pack tent, thin down sleep bags, enough doughnuts, candy bars, chips, and maybe a couple of bottles of soda to get us by for two nights) and headed out on a Friday night after work. We hiked the switch back up, up, and up trail in till it ends (probably about 3 miles), found our spot, set up our tent, and excitedly walked over to "the edge" of the canyon to do some locate bugling. I did not have to deploy my super awesome PVC bugle tube to solicit an answer as the canyon/basin below was literally screaming with elk. OK, by now it's well past dark so we hit the tent for a restless night's sleep with the sounds of the elk echoing off in the distance. At some point in the middle of the night, the snow came and it came large! The tent completely collapsed under the weight of the wet snow, started leaking through, and eventually soaked through our flimsy down bags. No problem; we're young and full of it! Up at the crack of dawn we roughly re-set up the tent and off down, down, down the side of the canyon we went to the singing bulls that were luring us. Wasn't too bad going down as we slid most of the way in the foot plus of snow. After we chased a few bugles around that morning with no shots we started thinking about getting back up that steep, snowy hillside to camp and perhaps, getting a fire going to dry our soaked clothes and bodies (it snowed all that day; heavy wet snow). It literally took us hours to get back up the hillside (using huckleberry brush and U brush as helping handles to grab and ascend up and not slide back down). That was an adventure in itself; I was really worried we could not get up that hillside. Once at camp, there wasn't a dry match in the mix so we eventually just crawled into our wet bags, with our wet clothes, and tried to get warm and sleep. Neither happened and we both shivered all night and, the tent collapsed yet again. We discussed getting "outa there" at some point that night but I'm pretty sure our old D powered flashlights were about spent after a few nights of using them and pretty sure we couldn't find the trail in the dark/snow. At the crack of dawn, we stuffed everything we had into our old packs and "ran/slid" down the snowy trail to the truck. That was not a fun night in the elk woods.

Yikes! Sounds like you guys had a close call RJ. My grandpa would scold me mercilessly if I didn't always have some waterproof match cases stashed somewhere on my body.

[7mmfan]

I have to say I've never really hunted in extremely cold temperatures for elk. Or really in general. I've been out in single digits a few times, but that was usually clear and cold after a storm. Lots of days in the snow in teens, but nothing crazy.

The two coldest days in the woods would be a day in Wyoming where a blizzard came in and was near whiteout conditions with high winds and temps in the teens. That was a cold ass day.

The other was a late season mule deer hunt here in WA. We left the truck to stalk a buck that morning and the temperature was 5 degrees. We killed that buck, drug it back to the truck in the sun, and started getting hot. We discussed how warm we thought it was, had to be in the mid to high 20's by then. Nope, 11 degrees is what the thermometer said. We strung that buck up, built a fire, and skinned him out and enjoyed a few beverages. Smelled like nasty rutting mule deer for at least 3 or 4 days. Fun happening of the day was while we were warming by the fire with a buck hanging, another dandy 4 pt chased a doe right through the camp between us and the truck. Man the rut is amazing.

[Elkhunttoo]

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Been I few years ago... my older brothers