masmcclintock
Member
- Joined
- Mar 27, 2017
- Messages
- 31
I will try to keep this as concise as possible but lets be totally honest; that probably won't happen. I'm posting in the "other" forum because this is mostly a recap of my brother and I's WY DIY buffalo hunt, but I decided to throw in our other hunts as well just for fun. First, thanks to everyone that helped with info on our literal once in a lifetime tags. Who would have thunk that two brothers from TX would draw 2 of the 25 bull bison tags in WY....well it happened, and "spoiler alert", we both go it done!
I will start with the first hunt of the year, which happened to be a CO archery deer tag. All other tags pretty much got thrown on the back burner after we drew the bison tags, including this one. I wasn't even planning on going, but my wife granted me permission to go opening weekend and see if I could pull it off. For everyone that has tried, a weekend in the high country of CO is not much time to drive from TX without setting foot in the unit and find a buck and actually get an arrow off, but I was happy for the chance. I talked my mom in to coming to help drive and also go on a "long hike"...she hasn't been to the high country before, so i don't think she fully knew what she was signing up for, but none the less we took off.
We drove all night and hit the trail before daylight. We made it close to where I wanted to start glassing and found some bucks. We watched them for a while and scouted the rest of the day before spiking out in our tents with intentions of finding the group of bucks again in the morning.
Opening morning started in the dark and getting to our glassing knob. 30 minutes later, our bucks popped back out. I decided to put a stalk on them while they were feeding and low and behold I got a shot at a good buck and was tagged out an hour into opening morning.
We packed him up and headed back to TX, and made the wife happy by showing up a day early from the weekend trip!...brownie points.
The next hunting trip was back to CO to try to fill my brothers elk tag that he cashed in a decent number of points for. To say that hopes were high for this trip would be an understatement. We planned our trip around the full moon and decided to go the 3rd week of Sept in hopes that the rut action would be going good during the day. Once again we drove all night and made it to the trailhead about 9am. We hiked until noonish and decided to take a little nap on the hill and then start some bugling shortly afterwards. From 1pm until dark we literally had non-stop action. We had 9 or 10 different bulls respond to our bugles and when we would blow one out, we would just go to the next one. It was the most epic afternoon of elk hunting that we have ever experienced; again in a unit we have never stepped foot in. Almost at dark, I called in a nice 5x5 into 23y and my brother couldn't resist and made a perfect shot. The bull took 4 steps and tipped over deader than a hammer...7 years worth of points gone in 6 hours of hunting!
We spent the next day packing the bull out.
Well, we had planned on being away from home for 10 days, and it had only been 2, so we decided that since we were half way to WY that we would at least go scout for buffalo and learn what the boundary situation was like up there. So we hit the road for another 12 hours.
We checked in with WYFG and got as much info as we could from them. I will say that the ladies at the Jackson office were by far the most helpful game department employees that either of us have ever dealt with. The were so helpful with all of their information, and genuinely wanting us to be successful on our hunt. A big shout out goes to them.
We took off from the game office and hit the hills looking for buff.
Day 1 was a lot of driving and getting our bearing as far as boundaries go and looking for sign. We did find some grizz tracks and shortly after cut a buff track on a mountain road.
Day 2. We took off in the direct of the buff track from the day before. A mile later and we found exactly what we drove 24 hours for. A wild buffalo on public land! We got the wind right and planned a stalk. I brought my bow and my brother brought the rifle as back up. I was the chosen one to go first since he had shot an elk 2 day before. We made our way closer and got to within 30 yards of the beast.
I put a good shot on him at 28y. A complete pass through with an Easton FMJ, 50g brass insert and 100g iron will solid broadhead. That was impressive. After some celebration and completely dumbfounded by the week we were having, reality set in that we had just shot a buffalo and it was going to get close to 70 later that day. We started calling around to packers, which should have been done in advance, but who knew that we would even be in the state during September....a long story short, it was the day before elk season started and everyone was moving in camps and clients. All of their advice was to hurry up and not let the meat spoil and have our heads on a swivel for grizzly bears that were due to show up to the scene of the crime at any point. This lit a fire under our butts and we went in after the bull earlier than we would have under normal circumstances. We ended up bumping him after about 150y of blood trailing and not wanting to push in onto Grand Teton National Park, or lose any more time we chose to finish him off with the rifle. It turned out to be the right decision because it finished the deal quickly, but on a selfish note, it kind of stunk because this was a huge bull. I rough scored him and he would have probably been top 10-20 all time P&Y. Nonetheless, I had my free range WY buffalo.
We butchered him up as fast as two guys can and got the meat away from the guts about 1/4 mile. We proceeded to spend the rest of the day making hauling meat and keeping our heads on a swivel looking for approaching grizz. It was honestly the most nerve wracking day in the woods I have ever had. There was grizz sign around every corner and it seemed like only a matter of time until we ran into one.
I will start with the first hunt of the year, which happened to be a CO archery deer tag. All other tags pretty much got thrown on the back burner after we drew the bison tags, including this one. I wasn't even planning on going, but my wife granted me permission to go opening weekend and see if I could pull it off. For everyone that has tried, a weekend in the high country of CO is not much time to drive from TX without setting foot in the unit and find a buck and actually get an arrow off, but I was happy for the chance. I talked my mom in to coming to help drive and also go on a "long hike"...she hasn't been to the high country before, so i don't think she fully knew what she was signing up for, but none the less we took off.
We drove all night and hit the trail before daylight. We made it close to where I wanted to start glassing and found some bucks. We watched them for a while and scouted the rest of the day before spiking out in our tents with intentions of finding the group of bucks again in the morning.
Opening morning started in the dark and getting to our glassing knob. 30 minutes later, our bucks popped back out. I decided to put a stalk on them while they were feeding and low and behold I got a shot at a good buck and was tagged out an hour into opening morning.
We packed him up and headed back to TX, and made the wife happy by showing up a day early from the weekend trip!...brownie points.
The next hunting trip was back to CO to try to fill my brothers elk tag that he cashed in a decent number of points for. To say that hopes were high for this trip would be an understatement. We planned our trip around the full moon and decided to go the 3rd week of Sept in hopes that the rut action would be going good during the day. Once again we drove all night and made it to the trailhead about 9am. We hiked until noonish and decided to take a little nap on the hill and then start some bugling shortly afterwards. From 1pm until dark we literally had non-stop action. We had 9 or 10 different bulls respond to our bugles and when we would blow one out, we would just go to the next one. It was the most epic afternoon of elk hunting that we have ever experienced; again in a unit we have never stepped foot in. Almost at dark, I called in a nice 5x5 into 23y and my brother couldn't resist and made a perfect shot. The bull took 4 steps and tipped over deader than a hammer...7 years worth of points gone in 6 hours of hunting!
We spent the next day packing the bull out.
Well, we had planned on being away from home for 10 days, and it had only been 2, so we decided that since we were half way to WY that we would at least go scout for buffalo and learn what the boundary situation was like up there. So we hit the road for another 12 hours.
We checked in with WYFG and got as much info as we could from them. I will say that the ladies at the Jackson office were by far the most helpful game department employees that either of us have ever dealt with. The were so helpful with all of their information, and genuinely wanting us to be successful on our hunt. A big shout out goes to them.
We took off from the game office and hit the hills looking for buff.
Day 1 was a lot of driving and getting our bearing as far as boundaries go and looking for sign. We did find some grizz tracks and shortly after cut a buff track on a mountain road.
Day 2. We took off in the direct of the buff track from the day before. A mile later and we found exactly what we drove 24 hours for. A wild buffalo on public land! We got the wind right and planned a stalk. I brought my bow and my brother brought the rifle as back up. I was the chosen one to go first since he had shot an elk 2 day before. We made our way closer and got to within 30 yards of the beast.
I put a good shot on him at 28y. A complete pass through with an Easton FMJ, 50g brass insert and 100g iron will solid broadhead. That was impressive. After some celebration and completely dumbfounded by the week we were having, reality set in that we had just shot a buffalo and it was going to get close to 70 later that day. We started calling around to packers, which should have been done in advance, but who knew that we would even be in the state during September....a long story short, it was the day before elk season started and everyone was moving in camps and clients. All of their advice was to hurry up and not let the meat spoil and have our heads on a swivel for grizzly bears that were due to show up to the scene of the crime at any point. This lit a fire under our butts and we went in after the bull earlier than we would have under normal circumstances. We ended up bumping him after about 150y of blood trailing and not wanting to push in onto Grand Teton National Park, or lose any more time we chose to finish him off with the rifle. It turned out to be the right decision because it finished the deal quickly, but on a selfish note, it kind of stunk because this was a huge bull. I rough scored him and he would have probably been top 10-20 all time P&Y. Nonetheless, I had my free range WY buffalo.
We butchered him up as fast as two guys can and got the meat away from the guts about 1/4 mile. We proceeded to spend the rest of the day making hauling meat and keeping our heads on a swivel looking for approaching grizz. It was honestly the most nerve wracking day in the woods I have ever had. There was grizz sign around every corner and it seemed like only a matter of time until we ran into one.
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