Headed to Jackson Wyoming with an elk tag in my pocket

[Wind Gypsy]

Great bull, thanks for sharing! Interesting circumstances for sure.

 

[3855WIN]

Congrats on a fine bull.

 

[TheDudeAbides]

I know a rancher through mutual cattle backgrounds of families so have access. The trust has grown by my actions. I am maniacally safe with guns and am as happy with a 260 bull with a drop time as a 300 plus symmetrical bull. I stop in for a cup of coffee. I send emails and texts recapping my adventures hunting and in general. What you see is what you get with me and most people like sharing a campfire with me. I have seen things. Spin a good yarn. I have also had a lot of jumpstarts in life by having two parents in the home growing up, positive role models in my family for generations, no food security issues, good access to medical, etc.

Am very fortunate to have that private land access option as have now shot 3 nice bulls over the past decade that have dropped within a mile of each other on flat terrain. I place a high satisfaction value on a relaxing pace to a hunt and I realized this early on as began my application strategy that has resulted in over 80 drawn non-resident tags in my life. I have filled about 60 of those. Over half were solo hunts and all but 5 of the first 40 were on public land. I was willing to wait for years and in some cases have waited over 20 years to get a tag that offers a lot of public land with minimal tags so can be a relaxing pace for me.

An aging body and mind morphed my strategy about 10 years ago and especially about 5 years ago. I want to hunt for big game. There simply are hunts I did 10, 20 or 30 years ago that are a bridge too far. I now take two weeks to recover from backpack hunts. I have the t-shirt from a couple of near-death situations on hunts and am trying to not earn a third. Waiting 20 more years for certain tags is not going to end well as I tiptoe up to 60 but the odometer reading is a bit more due to some surgeries. I began looking at tags that were easier to draw and often this results because hunter access was problematic or hunting pressure was so heavy that the critters were chased off public land in the first day or two onto private.

Look at the elk unit I just hunted. I thought was a wilderness unit when first drew the tag in 2008. A popular hunting guide had it wrong in the 2008 advisory. I spoke with prior non-resident hunters as they tend to be more forthcoming, I began working my connections and got on private that hunt.

That unit has seen a couple of ranches sell during my time hunting there. A couple more ranches have subdivided and one sold after 5 years on the market. No one really knows who bought that ranch. Two more stopped allowing access for hunting. The land prices are north of $100,000 per acre so would take deep pockets to convert the private to public land that offers access. I may have some of the scrambled but things have changed and are changing. Public access to private is down.

Yet, WY wants more elk harvested in the unit so a short season, private land-only bull tag for the unit was launched in 2017. The private land-only tag does not include access like the NM rifle pronghorn tags do in certain NM GMUs. That is problematic to issue tags where access is dwindling. Trespass incidents have risen with the private tag based on my discussions with three ranchers during this visit. There is one very active outfitter and he tends to use just one ranch based on my discussion with prior clients so my observation on the dwindling access is not due to outfitters locking down the private. My experience hunting with easy to draw tags this year for WY Pronghorn 20 and 102 was anything but relaxing. Outfitters have locked down those mostly private land units. Public and WIA are pounded. War zone pounding and hiking 4 miles through ravines did not get me away from orange vests.

Back to the elk unit. Grizzly activity is not helping when a sector of public is locked down recently.

The Refuge is public and could create a lot of access for bull hunting. In theory. The stories I hear about the cow elk hunts on the Refuge and the clean-up required by the game wardens as the dust settles is a different type of harvest than I would enjoy. Perhaps the Refuge could limit the daily access so does not become a firing line situation. The Refuge might want to consider some quiet zones so the elk are not pushed in circles all day.

I enjoyed my hunt. Thoroughly. I enjoyed the visit with the rancher the night before I began hunting and coffee the next morning before first light. Even with two hours sleep last night night I feel great right now. Even by having hunted private. I am part of the problem in the unit though by using private. I do look forward to hunting tags on public next year as I did this year. I just have to be realistic what public terrain I can manage. I would hunt the elk tag next year if drew but not a likely outcome.

Thanks for sharing. This is actually a pretty cool story. Good luck moving forward