Ranching for wildlife hunts in CO

[ak32]

Has anybody ever had any experience with these? I have a preference point to burn and figured it might be nice to have a decent chance at a cow to put meat in the freezer this next season in addition to my archery hunt. Thanks!

[saddlesore]

Yes, There are several restrictions though on the ranch, such as no camping, no driving off road, no horses, no ATV's.Normally you have to check in morning and check out in the afternoon

It is only a program for residents,not nonresidents,

You can get on the CPW web and find the ranch rules.

If you are a resident and draw a tag,the ranch cannot charge you a trespass fee,guide fee or any other fees, but they can limit you as to where you can hunt on the ranch. Some ranches will furnish a guide,some won't. These are not canned hunts

[Tigger]

I have a buddy that just did one successfully last fall and shot a bull. in his case, they gave him a zone to hunt in and he couldn't go outside that zone. He had a good experience.

[baddaddy]

Been on several up near Craig. Had a great time and filled my tags. Look at all the rules for the ranch as well as the harvest stats for the ranch you want to hunt.

[nrocchio]

I've heard good and bad stories about the RFW hunts. A coworker and good friend of mine had a great time on an antelope hunt. I think the mixed opinions depend on the ranch and where you end up getting assigned on the property. I think would have a hard time with being stuck to my assigned area, and not being able to scout ahead of time, so I have never bothered trying one.

[saddlesore]

So very true Rocchio. No scouting is permitted prior to the season.

This past year,I took advantage of a cow moose RFW hunt and drew one of two tags awarded aft er6v years of appying. We checked in Friday night and I got real worried because about 30 elk hunters also checked in.

The ranch foreman told the elk hunters right away there were no elk. There sure was a bunch of disgruntled hunters, but the foreman split them all up an sent them along their way.

Then he took us two moose hunters and showed us the moose right at dusk. Saturday morning all I had to do was wait for legal shooting hours and walk out into the willows and kill a moose.Took me about 15 minutes.Wasn't much of a hunt, but I'm 72 and I wasn't ever going to draw a bull moose tag in CO, but I wanted to kill a moose, and going to another state was beyond my financial budget .

While dressing out the moose, two different bands of elk went by me. I mentioned this to the foreman when I checked out and he told me he knew the elk were there, but didn't want to screw my hunt up letting elk hunters in there as it took me a lot longer to draw that tag. I was very appreciative of that, but I bet the elk hunters were not.

Several years ago,I drew a deer tag on a local ranch for RFW. I had watched a nice Wt buck for several month form a public road and I wanted to kill it.That foreman told me they reserved that buck for the out of state ranch owner so he put me in an area where I could not possibly take that buck.I ended up tagging a mediocre muley buck and until 2015 never put in for another RFW tag