Colorado recap

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   Well, we got back from CO this week. It didn't go quite as planned, we left Thursday AM and I had a serious cold, not good. We got there and scouted the area a little with the guys we were staying with. My buddy knew most of them pretty well, I was acquaintances with them. We bought elk tags and were ready for opening morning on Saturday. Holy hunters!! I have never seen more hunters in an area in all my life. If we didn't see 30 hunters Saturday in the woods we didn't see one. We saw some deer, no elk. My buddy started to get sick Saturday night. We slept in some Sunday due to feeling under the weather. The weather wasn't cooperating, it was very warm. We got out Sunday but didn't see anything. By Monday morning my buddy was very sick, we slept in again and that evening he called his Dr for some meds. We did find access to the mountain earlier in the week, but the road was very rough and long. 2hr to go 10mi to 11000ft+. There was lots of elk and deer sign up there, but getting there was tough.  Tuesday we got out late after he got his meds and saw some deer that evening. Wednesday AM we were feeling some better so went to the spot we were the night before where I saw a bunch of deer and a buck the night before right before last light. My buddy passed up a couple small fork horns there a night or 2 before also. On the walk in we spotted a group of deer with a rack buck, not what we were hoping for but, we decided to leave Thursday due to the weather, our health and my son had a playoff game in Yuma Friday night, a 3.5hr ride from our home in AZ for my wife alone. We decided to take the buck. First shot was 353yds, I hit him low in the shoulder, but he ran quartering towards us and at 250yds I put one thru the boiler room and he went down. Luckily we had a short pack out, 700-800yds maybe. With the way we were feeling it was bad enough. 65F during the day and a low only going to the 40s did not equal good hunting. We did not see a single elk and out of 10 guys in camp the only other take was a cow elk on Monday. The guys have been going there for over 20yrs and this was the worst year they ever had. Can't change the weather. Despite us getting sick My buddy and I had a great time together, as we always do, and he told my boys he would be back out in 2 weeks to try to get a Coues buck with us, they are pumped up!! Colorado is beautiful and the San Juan NF does hold alot of game, there is an immense amount of road kill in that area. We saw some huge bucks in the road, just didn't get to where we were hunting, so it goes with hunting!! 