wyoming cow hunt

so we continued a different way to try and find access to public, with repeated fails from road blockages..... we were headed to the sourthern part of the unit, getting close to kaycee. we had elk tracks that headed back to the face. but as luck would have it, access denied..... and it was a 15 mile trip on snow covered roads to get back to the black top :x
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it was getting late and with the temps as they were we decided to motel it for the night and eat in town. I was getting wiped.....
and finally!!!!!!![attachment=0]<!-- ia0 -->IMG_1983.JPG<!-- ia0 -->[/attachment]
a bachelor herd of bulls along the road. we watched them spar for a bit, before they wandered farther off. kim was beyond excited! and she didn\'t even have a bull tag :D
just down the road from them was a good chunk of public that we actually had access to! and it had some good looking bedding terrain in it. so that was the game plan for tomorrow morning. by the looks of the snow, no one had touched it yet!
btw, I just bought and was using it for this trip, but I had the onXmap for Wyoming and it worked fabulously.
 
\"zpd307\" said:
so we continued a different way to try and find access to public, with repeated fails from road blockages..... we were headed to the sourthern part of the unit, getting close to kaycee. we had elk tracks that headed back to the face. but as luck would have it, access denied..... and it was a 15 mile trip on snow covered roads to get back to the black top :x
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it was getting late and with the temps as they were we decided to motel it for the night and eat in town. I was getting wiped.....
and finally!!!!!!![attachment=0]<!-- ia0 -->IMG_1983.JPG<!-- ia0 -->[/attachment]
a bachelor herd of bulls along the road. we watched them spar for a bit, before they wandered farther off. kim was beyond excited! and she didn\'t even have a bull tag :D
just down the road from them was a good chunk of public that we actually had access to! and it had some good looking bedding terrain in it. so that was the game plan for tomorrow morning. by the looks of the snow, no one had touched it yet!
btw, I just bought and was using it for this trip, but I had the onXmap for Wyoming and it worked fabulously.
Click to expand...
we checked into this little strip motel and ate at a bar.
the hospitality was not very good.... I sparked up a conversation with the owner. I was confused as to why those roads, that were showing to be roads on any map that I looked at, were closed. boy did she give me an earful! she made it well known what they think of out state hunters..... needless to say, we cooked our suppers at the motel on my grill....
 
next day, its - something out, 9 or 6, I cant remember.... we get out and start hiking a ridge, we see plenty of mulies which gives kim some practice on guessing distances. she was pretty close!
she also took lots of selfies :lol:
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we were almost to the top of the ridge when I see two trucks pull next to us. they talked for a bit, then three guys get out wearing jeans and regular jackets. two of them with rifles. they started hoofing it down the 2 track, obviously trying to cut us off from something...
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we ran out of public on the ridge that we were following, so we had to cut west, drop down and then climb back up another ridge to continue north on the public. low and behold, there were two of the hunters already up that ridge...... we watched them head back to their trucks and continued to where they had been.
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we got up the ridge and headed north. there was one main ridge with several finger ridges branching out from it.
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we got to the other side of this point. there were still a couple of mile of public to walk before we could hook west across the sage openness to get to some timbered ridges west of us. we elected to back out play that out with an entire day in front of us....
on the way back to the truck along that main ridge, we cut fresh elk tracks, a herd. they had been spooked, as the tracks indicated that they were running. we followed them to where they went onto private. then we back tracked to see where they came from. they had been down low in a basin, between two of the finger ridges.....
we made it back to the truck and decided to drive down the road and find another public piece. we stopped and watched another bachelor herd of bulls feeding on the edge of an alfalfa field! we found another piece of public that had some timber on it. we climbed up a ridge only to find out that there was a 2 track going through it with fresh tire tracks..... as we were walking up, a truck came up the 2 track and parked below us. our truck was parked at the road and they obviously saw our foot prints in the snow......
we continued to the north end of the parcel. no elk tracks were found.....
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on the way back, you could feel it getting colder, the truck said -6
 
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on the way back, we stopped and watched a field, there were several hundred deer in it, but no elk. kim commented on whether we were going to see the bulls again, on the way back to the motel. low and behold a bull crossed the road right in front of me!
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he was with a group of 6 or 7
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we moteled it again..... my coors was freezing up while I was grilling chicken breasts outside at the truck!
 
we woke up to -14. brrr! we would never stay warm in that temp! so we drove to buffalo and went up the mtn, to check on the accesses up there. the ones that we couldn\'t because we got stuck.... we saw -16 before it started warming up.
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as you can, hwy 16 out of buffalo was a tad icy........
 
there was more snow up here..... kim didn\'t want me chaining up to do anymore exploring..... so I went where there had been plenty of traffic to blaze a trail before me. I got out once to walk up farther on the road. I got back and all I heard was, I have seen this before..... :lol:
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we did cut some day old tracks up there, but it was national forest and private land.... we turned around and went back south. we hit up another public piece further west....
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theres the end of this days hunt. we again saw some bulls, on the way back to the motel..... almost 200 miles of driving earlier in the day and almost 7 miles of hiking.... this spot was pretty desolate. deer and bunny tracks, but no actual animals were seen!
I had the thermostat pegged in the motel room. it would only heat to 73 degrees :think:
 
Friday was only -9 in the morning, so we put into action our death march plan..... get to the ridges at the first spot we hunted, at day break and look into the bowls for elk. from there we were to continue north and then cut across to the west and get into the timbered ridges, where it looked as to where those elk had ran to when they got busted out. it was going to be an all day deal.....
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we got to the ridges at day break!
and saw these!
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this guy thought that we was safe......
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this herd had 2 really nice bucks in it! here is one of them.
another shot of him
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we got to the other side of that point again and decided to glass to the west. we were there early enough that I was hoping to see some elk on the fringes of the timber. well, I did!
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there was a herd of about 25. on the left of the pic is a bentonite hill. the elk were to the right, just below it\'s shadow. after watching them a bit, I saw that they were headed north, towards the public piece to the west of us. at least that death march had some meaning now, as matt would put it :lol:
here we are glassing at that point
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on our way to intercept those elk....
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boy, it was a long way, just to get to the other side! we did get to the other side and were headed south towards them, when we ran into a wide and steep drainage. looking at the gps, after we dropped and came back up the other side, there wasn\'t much public left..... we had crossed a cow/calf set of elk prints and changed course to follow them. little did we know that they ended up dropping down into the drainage. it was steep! I slid halfway down, on my butt, uncontrollably..... the only thing that stopped me was a downed log :eek: kim was a little hesitant to follow :lol: we followed the tracks for several miles west.
 
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the tracks led all over the place.....
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led us to a rub from this year
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that little drainage in back is where we jumped a really nice 6x6 bull. he was on the opposite side. we heard him jumped up and his antlers hit some branches. kim yelled something big! its a bull! then proceeded to run behind me to hide. she grabbed onto my pack and almost pulled me down :lol: I yelled what are you doing! she said I don\'t want him to see me....youre hiding behind me! get out your rifle he might not be alone! he stopped for a few seconds and then trotted off. nothing else came out with him. I ranged him at 260 yards..... we continued following the tracks. guess what, they led to private land..... so we turned around and headed back. I started doing the math, we were walking out in the dark.....
 
on our way back we had had to drop down and then head back up the other side of that steep drainage. it was Idaho steep, just lucky it was Idaho long!
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here we are climbing back out!
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at least we got out of that drainage before dark...... but we were still far from the truck! it took 2 more hours after I snapped this pic.....
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we encountered a lot of washouts..... some we were lucky enough to be able to jump across, and they were always over 10 feet deep! I could tell kim was beat. she doesn\'t swear, so every time we got to another one that we needed to climb down and back up out of, I heard her say are you fing kidding me :lol:
it was getting cold, we barely had any food or water, which didn\'t matter, because as soon as you stopped, your hands went numb. so we trudged on......
the bright moon helped with navigation! and we finally made it!
 
last day..... it was warm, 9 above! we had one more spot to check out, but as of yet, there were no tracks in the pull off, indicating that anyone had used it.....
I went further west first to double check for access on some other parcels. denied again....... so I went back and we hunted that spot.
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it was beautiful country! I started the day with one less layer on, and we both still had to stop and take another off..... it was getting warm!
 
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it was nice to be able to rest and not freeze your butt off! kim and I got to talk and take in our experience so far!
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another example of these washouts that just suddenly appear....
 
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by this time it is warm and the snow is sticky......
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the last sunset of the trip......
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and she is still smiling :D
we didn\'t cut a single elk track.........
 
we decided to get a jump on the return trip home and headed east after the hunt.
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due to the cold, the interstate wasn\'t as cleaned off as I was hoping...... there were still plenty of icy patches and slick spots due to blowing snow. starting west of sundance, it started snowing..... we decided to stop in rapid city for the night. I was so amped up that I couldn\'t stop shaking while we ate diner at chili\'s.....
with it snowing in rapid city, I wasn\'t sure how sucky the roads were going to be in the morning...... I didn\'t sleep well, ended up waking up around 3 am.....
there was snow predicted in mn on the way home...... ugg, I made sure we left good and early incase were bad.
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luckily, nothing really terrible happened and we made it home safe and sound, to over 8 inches of new snow!
 
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