First time WY elk hunter

[lander_matt]

Hey there, frequent lurker posting for the first time & introducing myself. I've been living in Lander for last few years, but this general/OTC rifle season will be my first time hunting elk.

My primary goals for the season: 1). Put meat in the freezer. 2). Learn a lot. 3). See or hear a bull.

I was thinking about primarily hunting units 28 and 98 since they're close to home, and I have a lot of afternoon flexibility for scouting over the next month, but I'm open to all general units and suggestions. Sadly, most of my friends in town are good-for-nothing rock climbers, so I don't have much local wisdom to tap into for a starting point. I have some vague ideas about trailheads and regions of interest, but I'd love to hear about tactics and/or experiences from people who have hunted these areas (especially in the general season). Were you glassing or lurking in the timber? Do the bulls respond to any calling post-rut? How late do they stay above 10,000 feet?

I imagine dealing with the general season pressure will be the greatest challenge. My natural inclination is to walk as deep into the Winds as possible and get away from the pack trails since I'm pretty fit and comfortable in the mountains, but it would be a bummer to spend two weeks slogging around deep in the backcountry without seeing anything.

I'd also be keen to ring steel/spot/practice calling wind if you're in the area. I try to get to the LVSA regularly but, despite the existence of the 1300+ yard range, haven't met many other folks who seem to be precision-minded or dedicated long range shooters. The accepted standard of accuracy for most of the hunters I meet there seems to be a 3 MOA group at 100 yards from the bench

I'll be sure to post after the season with a recap. Now hop on that soapbox and roast me in my PMs or the comments below!

 

[wyosteve]

Welcome. My only thought is that your goals should be reversed, i.e., 1) See or hear a bull. 2) Learn a lot. 3) Put meat in the freezer. To me that's more realistic. Good luck.

 

[Old Rooster]

Welcome from Montana Matt.You have come to the right place.
Many here hunt/chase elk and will give you some ideas.
Expect a lot of hunting pressure!Many want an elk but many are not successful.
Look for elk tracks and elk poop.After the rut there will be some young bulls making noise but most older bulls have what nature wanted them to have and they will be quiet.Your area may be different.
I carry a cow call as a buggle call got me zero results,your area may be different.
Elk need food and water.If the weather is warm look for a water source and be prepared to see a lot of elk butts as they smell you before you see them in most cases so use a non scented soap to bathe with and use the same non scented soap to wash your clothes and dry in open air as a dryer will leave a scent if the wife uses anti-static products to dry clothes.
Many will follow with more advice.Edit to add:Here is a link to the soap I use:Amazon product ASIN B0132U0UAOWalmart has that exact same soap as well as clothes non scented soaps

Old Rooster

 

[MtPockets]

Welcome to LRH from southern Mt, Matt!

I can't help with southern Wy. I lived in the Big Horn Basin a few years and hunted there, but my suggestion would be to strap on your hiking boots and go deep.
Does your wife/girlfriend enjoy the outdoors?
Any chance any of your rock climbing buddies would be interested in tagging along, even if not to hunt?
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy hunting by myself but I enjoy the hunt much more when my wife is along. She tagged along without hunting for several years, then took up archery and now we bowhunt together!
As for where to find the animals, I rarely found Elk above 10000 feet, except maybe in the summer. Once it gets to be fall and the snow starts falling, they'll come out of the high country fairly quickly.
For calling, I agree with Old Rooster- we do much more cow calling than bugling.
Probably the best advice I was ever given was to hunt into the wind, but that can be very frustrating in the mountains where the wind seems to change direction on a whim. Watch the thermals, too.
There is a lot to hunting, but the biggest thing is to just enjoy the ride.

Again, welcome and enjoy LRH!

 

[memtb]

Welcome from North-Central Wyoming!

Hope you enjoy you time here….lots of good folks with a wealth of knowledge!

Satisfied with 3 MOA! It's really not difficult to understand. Many long time resident hunters know the country, know how the elk move/live, hunt in mixed timber terrain…..and have no intention of making long shots at elk.

There will be some serious long range shooters/hunters…..but, they are the minority! JMO memtb

 

[memtb]

Welcome from Montana Matt.You have come to the right place.
Many here hunt/chase elk and will give you some ideas.
Expect a lot of hunting pressure!Many want an elk but many are not successful.
Look for elk tracks and elk poop.After the rut there will be some young bulls making noise but most older bulls have what nature wanted them to have and they will be quiet.Your area may be different.
I carry a cow call as a buggle call got me zero results,your area may be different.
Elk need food and water.If the weather is warm look for a water source and be prepared to see a lot of elk butts as they smell you before you see them in most cases so use a non scented soap to bathe with and use the same non scented soap to wash your clothes and dry in open air as a dryer will leave a scent if the wife uses anti-static products to dry clothes.
Many will follow with more advice.Edit to add:Here is a link to the soap I use:Amazon product ASIN B0132U0UAOWalmart has that exact same soap as well as clothes non scented soaps

Old Rooster

I'll add to this ……use your nose with the thermals that MtPockets has mentioned! Often you'll know that you're into elk before you really any fresh sign…..you're nose is your friend when hunting the timber. But you shoots might be measured in feet in stead of many hundred yards! memtb

 

[lander_matt]

Thanks for all the advice everyone!

Welcome. My only thought is that your goals should be reversed, i.e., 1) See or hear a bull. 2) Learn a lot. 3) Put meat in the freezer. To me that's more realistic. Good luck.

Interesting. I figured I had decent odds of getting a cow if I put in the grunt work but assumed seeing--much less shooting--a mature bull was considerably less likely in these regions.

 

[lander_matt]

Well, I managed to meet all my goals and exceed them. I shot a nice 6x7 on October 13th around 6:30pm. Public land, general tag. In total I put in about 7 days of scouting and another 10 or so days of hunting.

I saw a lot of elk the week before the start of the season (including the evening before opening day), and on opening morning I heard a nearby hunter kill a bull about 400 yards away from me that I'd watched several times while scouting the week prior. That near miss would be the closest I got to seeing a live elk for the next 7 days of hunting. It sleeted or snowed about 5 of those early days, but temperatures always warmed back up, and all elk seemed to be hiding deep in the timber and staying quiet.

When the forecast showed 48 straight hours of snow with a lot of accumulation starting October 11th, I was optimistic about a possible behavioral change. My gamble paid off, and I started seeing promising tracks midday on the 13th after the fog lifted. The nearest road to the spot I had picked for that evening was an impassable mess, so I tacked on an extra 700 feet of elevation gain to my hike and approached the target area from a different side of the mountain.

Around 5:50pm, I saw a decent bull about a mile away and watched him for the next 15 minutes, hoping to see where he'd bed. There was far too much dense timber between us to close the distance that evening, but I figured I might have a chance the next morning. At 6:10pm, that lone bull disappeared into the trees for good.

Pleased by the sight of any elk after my drought, I stretched, looked up from my binos, and immediately saw a herd of 4 elk beginning to feed across the bottom of a meadow 90 degrees to the east of my glassing position. Holy crap! How had they snuck up on me?! They were 1100 yards away, the wind was blowing uphill toward me, and I could follow the treeline along the edge of the meadow to get to them. Game on! I humped it down the edge of the meadow, rifle in hand and postholing the whole way. I paused every minute or so to check the wind and watch their reactions.

I closed the distance to the shortest possible clear shot. I ranged them around 422 yards and dialed up 1.7 mil. There was minimal wind, but the snow was too deep to shoot prone, so I threw the rifle on my tripod while trying to catch my breath from the sprint. The herd remained unbothered as I lined up on the biggest bull. He was grazing while facing me head-on for what felt like ages (but likely amounted to only a minute or two). I broke the trigger the instant he turned broadside.

After the shot, the bull walked behind a tree, mostly obstructing my view. It felt like a good squeeze, but I scrambled to get a clear angle just in case. About 30 seconds later he wobbled back into view and promptly fell over. He seemed down for the count, but there was still some head movement, so I took a quick follow-up shot to the neck to minimize any suffering. I would guess less than 90 seconds total had elapsed since the the first shot.

I had been hunting in 12-20 inches of snow that day since 6am. I made it back to the truck around 7:30am the next morning with the first load of meat after 6 hours of walking. Several friends came to my rescue that night to help me finish quartering and each carry a load. One of them, a climbing guide and alpinist, said the hike out through the deadfall and unconsolidated snow was one of the hardest things he's done in the mountains. My knees agreed with the assessment, but sufficient ibuprofen got me back up the mountain 24 hours later. The total effort on the day felt pretty equivalent to climbing something like the Beckey-Chouinard or RNWF of Half Dome.

 

[Rick Richard]

Great story and bull. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Jack Woods]

Congrats thank you for sharing

 

[338weatherby]

Awesome story. Congrats.

 

[Country Bumpkin]

Well, I managed to meet all my goals and exceed them. I shot a nice 6x7 on October 13th around 6:30pm. Public land, general tag. In total I put in about 7 days of scouting and another 10 or so days of hunting.

I saw a lot of elk the week before the start of the season (including the evening before opening day), and on opening morning I heard a nearby hunter kill a bull about 400 yards away from me that I'd watched several times while scouting the week prior. That near miss would be the closest I got to seeing a live elk for the next 7 days of hunting. It sleeted or snowed about 5 of those early days, but temperatures always warmed back up, and all elk seemed to be hiding deep in the timber and staying quiet.

When the forecast showed 48 straight hours of snow with a lot of accumulation starting October 11th, I was optimistic about a possible behavioral change. My gamble paid off, and I started seeing promising tracks midday on the 13th after the fog lifted. The nearest road to the spot I had picked for that evening was an impassable mess, so I tacked on an extra 700 feet of elevation gain to my hike and approached the target area from a different side of the mountain.

Around 5:50pm, I saw a decent bull about a mile away and watched him for the next 15 minutes, hoping to see where he'd bed. There was far too much dense timber between us to close the distance that evening, but I figured I might have a chance the next morning. At 6:10pm, that lone bull disappeared into the trees for good.

Pleased by the sight of any elk after my drought, I stretched, looked up from my binos, and immediately saw a herd of 4 elk beginning to feed across the bottom of a meadow 90 degrees to the east of my glassing position. Holy crap! How had they snuck up on me?! They were 1100 yards away, the wind was blowing uphill toward me, and I could follow the treeline along the edge of the meadow to get to them. Game on! I humped it down the edge of the meadow, rifle in hand and postholing the whole way. I paused every minute or so to check the wind and watch their reactions.

I closed the distance to the shortest possible clear shot. I ranged them around 422 yards and dialed up 1.7 mil. There was minimal wind, but the snow was too deep to shoot prone, so I threw the rifle on my tripod while trying to catch my breath from the sprint. The herd remained unbothered as I lined up on the biggest bull. He was grazing while facing me head-on for what felt like ages (but likely amounted to only a minute or two). I broke the trigger the instant he turned broadside.

After the shot, the bull walked behind a tree, mostly obstructing my view. It felt like a good squeeze, but I scrambled to get a clear angle just in case. About 30 seconds later he wobbled back into view and promptly fell over. He seemed down for the count, but there was still some head movement, so I took a quick follow-up shot to the neck to minimize any suffering. I would guess less than 90 seconds total had elapsed since the the first shot.

I had been hunting in 12-20 inches of snow that day since 6am. I made it back to the truck around 7:30am the next morning with the first load of meat after 6 hours of walking. Several friends came to my rescue that night to help me finish quartering and each carry a load. One of them, a climbing guide and alpinist, said the hike out through the deadfall and unconsolidated snow was one of the hardest things he's done in the mountains. My knees agreed with the assessment, but sufficient ibuprofen got me back up the mountain 24 hours later. The total effort on the day felt pretty equivalent to climbing something like the Beckey-Chouinard or RNWF of Half Dome.

Wow, you are among the elite to have accomplished this in your first year of elk hunting, and on a true trophy. Well done!

 

[MtPockets]

Wow, you are among the elite to have accomplished this in your first year of elk hunting, and on a true trophy. Well done!

^^^^what Bumpkin said!
Congrats on a heck of a hunt and a great bull!

 

[Prairie Sasquatch]

Congrats on that bull. The elk gods were smiling on you.