Wyoming General Elk Wilderness Hunt

SC Living Outdoors · Oct 1, 2024

This year I decided it was time to cash in my elk points and try my hand in Wyoming chasing elk. I applied for a west general tag and WY gladly took my 5 points after the completely typical 5 month wait for the draw results. My friend Trent and I have been hunting together for 3-4 years primarily in the spring in Idaho for bears, however, Trent recently move over to Alpine, WY and he offered to get the resident “guide license” and take me into the wilderness. I quickly accepted this offer and he headed over to the G&F office to sign on the dotted line agreeing to hold my hand and share a sleeping bag with me in the wilderness areas to insure my well being during the hunt.

The summer quickly faded and I was boarding a plane to fly to Idaho Falls where Trent picked me up at the airport and we headed across the boarder. Upon arrival Trent asked me exactly where I wanted to go. The wilderness area we were headed into was a spot neither of us had ever been. I had 2 main areas I’d e-scouted. I’d sent him a bunch of pins, but somehow only one of the areas had come through which had been my secondary choice, but I think being flexible is necessary on any hunt so we just adjusted our plans and headed to that area. We arrived after dark and just picked a random area along a creek to camp for the night. We awoke the next morning with plans to shoot my rifle and to checkout different trails looking at pressure and adjusting our plan as needed. The rifle shot well only needing a small adjustment because of elevation. Next we looked at trailheads. We looked at 3. One had a group of 4-6 hunters and guides heading in on horses, another had 3 local trucks (1 with a horse trailer and one trail had no one. The trail with no one on it had a clear reason why. The trail began with a 700’ climb in the first .65 a mile. I have something in common with elk… I don’t like seeing hunters either. We adjusted our plan and took the steep trail. We arrived to our camping spot about 6pm and set up camp. It was a beautiful ridge surrounded by burn area, deadfall and beautiful aspens that were all gold. We had a stream down below us so we gathered water and checked out 2 different glassing spots within 400yds of camp. While checking one of them out we saw a nice pile of grizzly scat (not fresh) which was fun. One of the spots was significantly superior so we glassed for about 45 minutes that night only seeing a few deer. Trent threw out some location bugles right at dark and we heard a few distant bugles which was encouraging. We tucked into our tents looking forward to an opening morning full of bugling bulls.

undercover · Oct 1, 2024

What beautiful color, looks your in a good spot! Following

jvanhoy · Oct 1, 2024

I already know this is going to be good!

elkhuntinfool78 · Oct 1, 2024

Following

SC Living Outdoors · Oct 1, 2024

We awoke before the sun. As soon as I opened my eyes I heard a weird sound down below us in the thick bottom. When you’re in grizzly country every sound immediately makes you hyper focused then your brain kicks in and you can try to deduce what your actual hearing.
“Waaaaaaaaaaaa Waaaaaaaaaaa”.
The heck is that?
“Umph Umph”
Brain kicks in… I realized there was a cow moose down in the valley doing her very best to let every bull within a 5 mile range know where she was located and there was a bull on our ridge about 300 yds away letting her know he was coming. We ended up seeing 6 moose that day. Trent informed me that she’d been bellowing all night but I must’ve been dead to the world because I never heard her.

I didn’t have any elk size expectations for this hunt. I wanted to have fun in a new area and hunt bugling bulls. My goal on every hunt is to put my tag on a mature animal. I in no way will judge what other people choose to shoot as long as it’s a legal animal by my personal goal is every tag on a mature animal. I’m not always successful, but that’s the goal.

As we began to work our way up the ridge that morning to our glassing location we heard a bull bugle. He was below us in the valley… in range. We got to the first place we could see and I immediately saw a bull about 500yds away staring up at up at us. We dropped down and I got my spotter on him. He was a 5x6. Not a big bull but he fit the bill and I started to get set up. He was solo and he began to meander his away through the timber and deadfall. We watched him do this for 30 minutes. He never gave me a clean shot. Eventually he disappeared over the ridge. From time to time we would hear a shot. Trent kept calling and occasionally we would get a weak response.

Around 10 we saw a group of 7 cows work across the far ridge trying to escape something they didn’t like very much. Around 1030 Trent got a bull worked up that we never saw. As we were moving into position to look for him we heard a gun shot below. We did see 2 other groups of hunters that’s day. We never saw a hunter packing meat from that area and we never saw a dead elk. I don’t know if that hunter missed or he just shot to scare off the bull that we were working.

We headed down the hill about 11:15 to go grab some food. We didn’t eat that morning because we didn’t want to mess with our food in the dark in grizz country so we hadn’t eaten. About 1/2 way down towards camp Trent dropped down quickly pointing up the hill the way we’d come. Out of the aspens ran a cow and a calf under 200yds away. I quickly pulled my rifle off my pack to look at them. They dropped down into the valley and behind them out of the aspens came a 5x5 raghorn. He stopped broadside for about 30 seconds. I was on him, but he didn’t fit the bill. We watched him run down into the valley calling to the cows.

We had 2 guys on horses ride by our camp around 3pm and we talked to a group of three local guys in their 20s that were packing out a 6pt that they killed a couple miles behind our camp in an area we couldn’t see but we’d heard the shots. They also told us they had a run in with a bear in the dark that morning that “woofed” at them. They also told us a forest ranger had let them know there was a sow grizz with 3 cubs in the area. Those were the only folks we saw on the trip.

Around 5pm we headed back up the ridge for the evening. Otw up I spotted 3 moose that we watched for a bit (cow, calf and a bull). Overall, It was a slow night unfortunately. We saw one cow elk a long long ways off high on a ridge but no bulls. We picked out mule deer all evening and right at dark picked up the bull moose one more time. Right as we were packing up to head down a bull began to bugle behind us in the thick timber on the adjacent ridge. This gave us some hope for the next morning.

SwaggyD · Oct 1, 2024

following along.

Baymb · Oct 1, 2024

SCliving Outdoors said:
This year I decided it was time to cash in my elk points and try my hand in Wyoming chasing elk. I applied for a west general tag and WY gladly took my 5 points after the completely typical 5 month wait for the draw results. My friend Trent and I have been hunting together for 3-4 years primarily in the spring in Idaho for bears, however, Trent recently move over to Alpine, WY and he offered to get the resident “guide license” and take me into the wilderness. I quickly accepted this offer and he headed over to the G&F office to sign on the dotted line agreeing to hold my hand and share a sleeping bag with me in the wilderness areas to insure my well being during the hunt.

The summer quickly faded and I was boarding a plane to fly to Idaho Falls where Trent picked me up at the airport and we headed across the boarder. Upon arrival Trent asked me exactly where I wanted to go. The wilderness area we were headed into was a spot neither of us had ever been. I had 2 main areas I’d e-scouted. I’d sent him a bunch of pins, but somehow only one of the areas had come through which had been my secondary choice, but I think being flexible is necessary on any hunt so we just adjusted our plans and headed to that area. We arrived after dark and just picked a random area along a creek to camp for the night. We awoke the next morning with plans to shoot my rifle and to checkout different trails looking at pressure and adjusting our plan as needed. The rifle shot well only needing a small adjustment because of elevation. Next we looked at trailheads. We looked at 3. One had a group of 4-6 hunters and guides heading in on horses, another had 3 local trucks (1 with a horse trailer and one trail had no one. The trail with no one on it had a clear reason why. The trail began with a 700’ climb in the first .65 a mile. I have something in common with elk… I don’t like seeing hunters either. We adjusted our plan and took the steep trail. We arrived to our camping spot about 6pm and set up camp. It was a beautiful ridge surrounded by burn area, deadfall and beautiful aspens that were all gold. We had a stream down below us so we gathered water and checked out 2 different glassing spots within 400yds of camp. While checking one of them out we saw a nice pile of grizzly scat (not fresh) which was fun. One of the spots was significantly superior so we glassed for about 45 minutes that night only seeing a few deer. Trent threw out some location bugles right at dark and we heard a few distant bugles which was encouraging. We tucked into our tents looking forward to an opening morning full of bugling bulls.

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how neat!!

Arcola · Oct 1, 2024

SCliving Outdoors said:
he headed over to the G&F office to sign on the dotted line agreeing to hold my hand and share a sleeping bag with me in the wilderness areas to insure my well being during the hunt.

SC Living Outdoors · Oct 1, 2024

Day 2 arrived without the moose calling and very minimal elk bugling. We worked our way up the ridge and settled in to glass. Over the next 90 minutes we heard very minimal bugling. Then it began to pick up. A bull started to bugle on the back side of the ridge we were glassing. He kept bugling and kept bugling. We were hoping he would come over the ridge.

Finally around 8am Trent and I couldn’t take it any more and dove down off our glassing perch across the valley and up the ridge. Every time the bull would bugle we would freeze and listen to pinpoint his location. He was slowly working away from us but the wind was perfect and every ridge we crested we would sneak up and peak over only to hear him in the thick timber of the adjacent ridge or already over. It was like he was pushing towards a specific location. I kept saying to Trent “They have to bed eventually”. Sometime around 10am we determined there was now a 2nd bull bugling as well. They continued to follow sneaking and keeping the wind in our face. We bumped into multiple deer and I was worried they were going to absolutely blow it for us but they never did.

Finally around 10:45 we caught up to them. We slipped over a ridge that gave us a good vantage point above a thick aspen patch. The bulls were screaming. I saw a bull to my right and hurriedly laid down setting up my rifle. A small 5x5. He wasnt one of the screaming bulls. These 2 bulls were down in this aspen patch doing their best to out yell each other. As we sat there set up we heard another bull begin to bugle and work his way up the valley into the aspens. It was absolutely unreal. Around 12pm two cows popped out in the ridge across from us about 600 yds away. I laid down and I saw one of the big bulls briefly. I had a frontal shot at 600yds and no wind. I didn’t like the shot though so I didn’t shoot. They were all packed in this 250yd by 125yd patch of aspens. I felt like eventually I would be given a good opportunity at one of the bugling bulls.

Around 1230pm they finally bedded down. The only cows we ever saw were the 2 on top of the ridge which walked off, but we were assuming there had to be a hot cow down in the bottom. Even when the bulls bedded down they would still bugle every 10-15 minutes. They were so riled up that when we would move on the ridge to try to stay comfortable or keep in the shade on the ridge they would bugle at the rustling leaves. By listening to all the bugling we had the bulls beds pinpointed. The most consistent bugler was 300yds directly in front of me. There was a bull that sounded like a dinosaur with a growlly bugle that was closer to our side but down the valley about 150-200yds and the 3rd bull with more of a whistling type bugle was about 400yds down the valley.

I decided that the first good bull that gave me an opportunity I was going to shoot. We’d heard hundreds of bugles with the bull directly in front of me accounting for over half. We felt like all 3 were all mature bulls and we hadn’t seen any of them yet except for the bull up top that I couldn’t tell how big he was and Trent briefly seeing antlers through the trees in the bottom. Finally at 2:30pm after almost 4hrs sitting above the aspens I glassed down and saw the bull that had been bugling the most standing in an opening. I ranged him at 300. He took 2 steps to his right and I fired. I had a small opening, but there must’ve been some sticks/brush I didn’t see. I looked down and saw his antlers low in the hole. I thought he was down. As soon as I shot Trent started calling aggressively. I saw the antlers move. Then he bugles and moves to his left. He’d just been standing in a depression. “Oh no, I missed. What the heck”. Trent kept calling. He moved to my left a little more in the open where I can see him. Before I can shoot again He looks directly in Trent’s direction and makes a beeline straight at us. I stood up and began watching below us. All of the sudden I saw legs enter a clearing below us. Then the entire bull stepped out facing us at 100 yards. I could tell it was the same bull. I’d gotten a very good look at the bull before shooting and after. I fired standing up free handed and hit him head on square in the chest just left of center. He spun. I fired again Texas heart shot style with the bullet entering just left of center again. Both bullets burried deep into his vitals. He disappeared.

We gave him about 30 minutes and headed down. When we got to the opening he was laying about 10yds away right out of sight. He’s a beautiful bull bull with a big body and nice antlers. We checked all over him and inspect where he was bedded and determined that I must’ve clipped an unseen limb. No blood anywhere.

We took some pics and broke him down quickly moving away the meat away from the carcass and hanging it on adjacent ridge in the shade where we’d be able to see it well when we came back. The next day our plan was to pack the meat about 1.5 miles down to creek and completely debone the quarters and remove all the fat to lighten up the quarters as much as possible. We got the first load to the creek and hung up when I looked up on the ridge we were camped on and saw smoke about 2 miles above our camp up the ridge. We could see flames that were 40’ above the top of the trees from 3+ miles away. Someone must’ve been camped up there and started a fire. A big hot fire. All our gear was at camp minus our packs. I might have overacted, but there are certain things I don’t play around with. Forest fires are one of them. We took off as fast as we could deciding immediately to go get our gear off the ridge. As we arrived at camp the first helicopter flew over and began to circle the fire behind us out of view. Then another. They began to fly in with the big containers of water to dump on the fire. We couldn’t see it from our angle, but we got some pics the next day as they continued to soak the area. It was impressive to see. Those guys are awesome and did an unbelievable job putting those massive flames out. I looked at Trent and said “what if that fire had started last night when we were sleeping?” It really makes you think. Life is short.

The next day we hiked in with just our packs and got the rest of the meat to the creek, deboned and ready to take out. We got the meat out in one load (2 guys). It was very heavy. We moved the truck to come out a different way that was basically the same distance from the bull to truck and allowed us to come out an old closed road for 2/3rds of the pack. The whole pack out ended up being 6+ miles. Fun times.

The next day we hung out in Idaho and I shot some grouse that we ate for dinner and I killed my first badger that is a definite trophy to me! It was a great trip.