Randy Newberg Deep Colorado Bull Hunt Story
We just had the opportunity to interview Randy Newberg over at HuntingInsider.com. We loved this story so much we wanted to share it here. Jim Zumbo once gave a seminar on Easy Elk that I sat in once. It looks like it is a lesson that Randy Newberg hasn’t yet learned. We still haven’t learned that lesson fully either so we can commiserate with Randy and we too are getting a little too old for these kinds of adventures but they are fun when it happens to the other guy. Please go read our full interview with Randy Newberg over at HuntingInsider.com.
Tell us about your Colorado adventure:
My body hurts just recounting the story. Anyone who hunted Colorado 3rd season in 2016 knows how hot it was. Elk, already in winter coats, don’t do well in those temps. They head to dark north-facing canyons. You either go in there to get ‘em or you go home with your tag unpunched.
We (may camera man Marcus Hockett was with me) had glassed some bulls and spent most the day trying to find an easy way to them. There was no easy way. Having invested 19 preference points for the tag, I passed some nice bulls that I still question.
When I saw this bull, he was almost straight down in a canyon. Big elk cause grown men to do some stupid things. Shooting this bull in that canyon was one of those stupid things.
We were already 600’ down into the canyon. To where the bull stood, it was another 800’ of vertical and a quarter mile horizontal down to where he got hung up in some oak brush (thankfully). Words do not adequately describe the terrain, mostly rocks and cliffs, we had to navigate just to get him quartered and hanging in game bags. Then, to come out in the dark, through oak brush jungles, was probably as dangerous as it was excruciating.
We shot him just before dark on a Sunday night. We got back to camp that night around 1:30 am, having only hauled out all our production gear due to the dangers of traversing this unknown terrain in the dark. We woke the next morning, questioning what the hell we had just done.
With the weather being so warm, we knew we had to get back down in there and start the boning and extraction. That first day of packing, we got all of it boned and trimmed. We shuttled both hinds, one front, and all the trim and loins to a bench about midway out of the canyon, leaving the head and one front down in the bottom for the next day. On our way out that night, we took with us a hind and the trim/loin bags, leaving the rest on that bench.
The second morning, we got down to the bench and extracted the other hind and a front. That left us the head and one front that was still all the way in the bottom. That was the hardest load. We were physically spent by this time and the oak brush kept ripping at the antlers on my pack. Yet, we made it out by late afternoon.
Two long hard days for one elk is not the norm. Usually we take some of it out when we first head back to camp. I felt it was going to be tough enough to navigate this brush and cliffs with our packs full of production gear, especially in the dark. And normally I will take heavier loads, such that we can get it in four pack loads, or in this case, two trips. The terrain and brush was just too tough for that.
I suspect the elk got the last laugh on this one. I’m 52 years old. I’m too old for those kind of extractions.
How can people follow you on the web?
We’ve really grown our digital platforms that last year. In addition to the Hunt Talk Radio podcast and the Fresh Tracks TV show, you can find us on YouTube.
Our YouTube channel, Randy Newberg Hunter, will get more full-length views in 2016 than most TV shows get. We will be doing some YouTube exclusives in the next year. We also post a lot of videos that are “how to,” satisfying a huge demand from viewers that cannot be met in the time constraints of TV.
When we really want to get into the depth of topics and share a lot of advice, that gets done over on our big western public land hunting forum, Hunt Talk (www.HuntTalk.com).
Our Facebook and Instagram platforms have been a focus in the last year, increasing by 500% in just one year. All that growth has been organic, so our audience is both growing and highly engaged. I would put our listeners/viewers/followers up against any audience in the hunting world, in terms of avidity and engagement. That is good for us. They keep me in line, keep us authentic, and serve as a great sounding board for what is going on in the hunting world.
