Judd Cooney's article in fur-fish game>hunting the high country.

SScoyote, a mountain goat?? Congrats!! That whole Collegiate area is stunning.

OK Mike, I just fished out Dougherty's book again and went through it more carefully - found the right chapter this time. Funny, I haven't looked through that book in 8-10 years, but as soon as I saw the reference at the top of the thread to Cooney and high-country hunting, that chapter in the book was the very first thing that popped into my head.

Come on out to CO Mike, you'll be spoiled for life! Only problem is, these days there are too darned many people here already, and too many of them biking/hiking/atv'ing in the highcountry and backwoods. Hard to wander with rifle in hand without tripping over them right and left.

On the subject of books, another really great one is "Hunting Predators for Hides and Profit" by Wilf Pyle. Came out around '91 or '92.
 
Colorado Pete,

Thanks for the tip on Wilf's book,i'll have to try and round it up at amazon.

I read in my road atlas the land mass and population's of places of interest.
Ohio has 12 million people with 40,000 sq. mi. of land.What was a good hunting place is now a silk pantry sub-division,as we call it around here.
Colorado has 7 million people with 104,000 sq. mi.of land.
People trying to get away from people,oh well i hate to be part of the problem but a mans gotta do what a mans gotta do!
Wyoming looks the best only 500,000 in the state>>>>>>>SSSSHHHHHHHH>>QUIET>>!!!
I like biking,hiking and rec.vehicles but when doing them i like to carry my 22-250 along for the real fun /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif .Oh,i read you say there are swirling crosswinds better make it my 25-06 /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif .ME
 
You might want to re-check your numbers, I though CO only had about 4 million...sure seems like 7 million though!

Wyoming and Utah are lookin' pretty good, but much of WY is pretty stark and desolate. I actually kinda like that but not in such large proportion. Have to nose around there more.

If you're going to move here, do it before we finish putting up the wall around it...
 
Thks. Pete-- it was a blast-- i tell ya'. I took a Bighorn 2 yrs. ago too out of the Sangre de Cristos. That and the goat was the fulfillment of a lifelong dream for me.

Mike-- i got a good story about mtn. calling for ya'. A buddy of mine from Westcliffe CO, close to the Sangre de Cristo's invited me up there to try and help him get a coyote for his den wall. Well, we went out one morning couple yrs. ago, and he brought his Model 7 .223 that was supposed to be sighted in. Anyway, for some dumb reason i let him talk me into calling from his rancher friends barn that faced a big oopen snow-covered pasture. Well 2 minutes into the stand the ranch dog starts barking, and i could hear people talking in the ranchhouse. So i just quit calling, but as per protocol i glassed the field in front of us, and sure enuf there was a lone dog just standing atop the the low ridge on the far end just watching the whole deal (ordeal). Well altho my friend didn't want to wait the dog out, i quietly convinced him to do so, and several minutes later he trotted back over the hill out of sight. I asked him if he was up for a hike , and he reluctantly said yes. Well it was probably close to 1/2 mile across that shin deep snow pasture, but we finally got close to the top of the ridge. We slowly ascended it, and glassed all around-- no dog. As we made our way over i noticed we were getting close to the top of a wide high spot with a slight breeze in our face-- perfect. We sat down, and i let out with a couple agressive howls, and waited-- nothing, a couple more howls and we just sat there. Few minutes later sure enuf here they come (2 now) off on a tangent to us. i did the best i could to coach my friend into position without spooking them, and when they got to about 70 yds. or so, i stopped them Randy Anderson (et al) style with a short sharp bark. Man those dogs looked nice silhouetted against the snow/mtns. like that. BANGO-- dogs are in high gear and gone all too quick. We saw a couple others that day, but no dice for my buddy-- nesxt time i guess. I was pretty proud of myself for a plan that came together tho-- i don't mind saying.

U know what the best part of Cooney's addition to that book was-- the picture of him holding that coyote on pg. 58. I don't think i'll ever forget seeing that picture for the 1st time, as a young kid in Baltimore. Seeing that inhospitable landscape he's hunting in with his heavy-barrelled varminter of some sort, those gators and white parka was a real dream for me back then-- that's since come true, thks. to him and a few others-- truth is, i think that photo, and the 1 on pg. 56 were from an article Judd wrote before the book came out-- i'm pretty sure about that.
 
Steve, you and I must be cut from the same cloth. Stuff like that, harsh winter in rugged country, always fascinated me. In the summer of '74 I was a 15-yr-old in NJ and was leafing through the Remington catalog and saw a picture of a guy snowshoeing his way up a steep mountainside with his trusty Remington rifle in hand, and right then I was hooked. Have yet to do that for big game, but managed to get out to Pennsylvania in January '94, 7 months before I moved to CO, hunting squirrels in the hills while snowshoeing through about 18" of fluff. That was FUN, even though the squirrels had way more sense than my partner and I and stayed in their nests. Did spook up some whitetails though, so it almost counted as a big game hunt! Used to go winter backpacking in the Adirondacks and Green mountains in NY and VT too, not to mention climbing that God-awful nasty Mt. Washington in NH. When I got back to NJ in '78 from 2 yrs in Trinidad CO (the gunsmithing program) I picked up Dougherty's book and got hooked all over again.

I tell ya, staying in a city is for people who haven't yet actually LIVED.
 
Whooaahhh to that i say.

When i 1st got stationed at the USAFA in '77 i often hung out at the library there reading old issues of Outdoor Life, etc. I happened onto a piece by a little known author, Ken Crandall, entitled, "How I Hunt Crafty Coyotes". This guy would scout an area in the WA mtns. that had a lot of coyote tracks, then hike in early in the a.m. to set up an ambush, usually shooting from one ridge to another. The 1st picture in that article showed him sitting there on one ridge watching another with his custom Herter's laminated pre-64 Win. 70 with a 26" Douglas in 6mm Rem. with a Herter's 3-9X Mark 1 with some sort of rangefinding reticle he had recalibrated for a coyote. Back in those days this was state-of-the-art varminting stuff, and my interest in accuracy shooting caused me to become mesmerized by that photo-- i bet i read that article 20 times just to look at that picture. I actually called this guy 20 yrs. later, since he put his hometown info in the article. Imagine his surprise getting a call from someone regarding something he wrote 20 yrs. ago! He's quite a bit older now of course but still gets out after coyotes some. That was the single best article i ever read about coyote hunting, and i've got a copy of it here at home.
 
Sounds like fun reading!

Reminds me of my own fascination with Jeff Cooper. Starting reading his stuff in Guns & Ammo around '72 or so. I still may have an issue where he wrote about using a sawed-off .223 case to make a high-pressure .38 super type round in an alloy long-barreled Colt Commander. The gun was the cover photo, called 9mm Super Cooper or some such. That got me hooked on him, I read his "Cooper on Handguns" in '94, hooked me worse, and every book of his I could get my hands on since. Never got to Gunsite, but finally had the chance to take offsite training from him at Raton in '97 (pistol) and '99 (rifle). Still enjoy reading his works on everything.

I can still think back to books and articles I read in the '70's as a wide-eyed teenager. Dave Petzal's "Book of the .22", Jack O'Connor's works, one article in a Gun Digest (I think) by a guy who went up to Loveland Pass to hunt rockchucks (I finally lived up to that one after 30 years!) etc. Many blissful hours spent reading.

Makes me want to write outdoors stuff for a living.
 
Pete-- i read that article about shooting rockchucks around Loveland Pass too a # of years ago-- he mentioned using some 24 cal of some sort-- i think 6mm regarding bucking the wind better or something-- man it's definitely a small shooting world out there. AND i've also got Wilf Pyle's book also.
 
Colorado Pete,

I hope i did get the population wrong,i must have got mixed up and put Georgia's population in there.
If you'all finish that wall before i get there>>>well put it this way,if you see a BIG'OL mound/hole you'll know i'm "in" /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif .
I know what you mean on the cut from the same cloth words,i would sit and dream of the wild blue yonder and that book showed me pictures of my dreams.
I was full-on "horse crazy" when i was a child,if you've ever been horse crazy you know what i mean.It matured into a dream of wide open spaces of the west>>>>>hope to fulfill that dream soon.
I'm about to turn 45 yrs.old so we were thinking the same stuff at the same time.

SSCoyote,

Great story on hunting the high country,too bad the BANGO didn't put that coyote on the wall of your friends den.
If i remember correctly the guns in the picture of Judd were a REM.6mm varmint special and a Winchester model 70 220 swift.That article totally influenced my choice for my first "real"varmint rifle,the 6mm rem..>>>ME
 
Mike, a long while ago I read in one of O'Connor's books how he thought the 6mm with a 90-grain bullet would be the ultimate coyote gun. A bit harsh for pelts, but it would sure put the spank on them and buck the wind better than most .22's for sure.
 
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