2013 Wyoming Elk Hunt - Part 2

The rest of the story…..

Okay, it’s been well over a week and I’m still on cloud nine over my Wyoming bull, but I’m finally getting around to posting up the rest of the story.

After getting my bull packed out and on ice at the end of day 1, we were in bed and the alarm was set for 4:44 am again for day 2.  It was very much of a déjà vu type experience, driving to the trailhead in the dark, hiking to our spot in the dark and then waiting for shooting light and the sun to come up.  Again, everything was very quiet and after a few unanswered cow calls and a couple unanswered locator bugles we decided to go ahead and do some more scouting around.

We visited all the suspect areas in the general area throughout the course of the day, stopping and waiting, a little bit of calling, more hiking (all of it bushwhacking) and again we weren’t seeing near as much sign of elk as we would expect.  We ended up covering just under 7 miles per the GPS, which doesn’t sound like much, but off trail through the brush and deadfall it was a pretty good day on our feet.  I’ve been working really hard at getting in good shape, but my friend Mike is 10 years older than me and I didn’t want to wear him out too much. 

Here’s a picture of us hiking through an old burn.  We still call it the burn, but it is getting pretty unhuntable anymore it is so thick.

Me and my ever present Mellow Yellow cow call.

We were back to the truck in the dark and made it back to camp just in time to eat supper and go to bed with the alarm set for 4:44 am to do it all over again the next day.  Another déjà vu morning rolled around, except this time we were trying a different spot that is a little less accessible, but almost always has elk activity.  The problem is that it is a big drop down into it, so whatever you shoot has to come up out of it.  That’s why it is usually about the last place we checkout each year.

Here’s a picture dropping down in.  

Looking back the other direction.

It never looks very steep in pictures, but trust me, it is some work to get down in and out of there. 

Again we were surprised at the lack of sign once we got down in there.  There were elk around some this summer, but hardly any fresh sign and really not as much sign from the summer as you normally would expect in this area.  We were getting pretty discouraged and really kind of at a loss for what to do next.  

Mike had forgotten his bugle near our normal spot the day before so we decided we would go ahead and climb out of the hole and go see if we could find his bugle and then eat lunch and decide what to do from there.  The climb out wasn’t as bad as we remembered and before too long we were back to where Mike had left his bugle and he let out a locator bugle to let me know he found it and we moved over to our spot to eat lunch.

I’ve mentioned it before, but it really is amazing how many elk we have killed in the last 6 years out of this relatively small area.  While we are sitting at the tree that I have marked on my GPS as the overlook tree and I pulled out my GPS the farthest we had killed an elk from that tree in the last 6 years was .59 miles.  That’s 6 elk in 6 years and the farthest was .59 miles away.  3 of them were within .25 miles from that tree.  Pretty amazing, if anyone wants to know the GPS coordinates just let me know… NOT!!

Okay, before we sat down to eat lunch we both threw a few cow calls out and then sat down and were eating lunch.  We were discussing what we were going to do for the evening hunt and which route we were going to take back to the truck because obviously the elk just weren’t around yet or something.  About the time Mike takes a bite of his sandwich, antler tines show up cresting the brush on a hill right in front of us.  Tines turn into a raghorn elk rack and then turn into a full body as it is pretty much crossing right in front of us.  Mike sets his sandwich down, pulls up his rifle and the bull spots him and turns our way, but not quickly enough.  A quick offhand shot from a sitting position and the bull is hit hard.  He goes crashing down and Mike has to stand up and walk over a few yards and puts a finishing shot in the back of his neck.  When it is all said and done Mike realizes that he didn't even flip up his scope covers. I ranged from the spot the bull was first hit back to the tree and it was a whopping 30 yards.  So make that 7 elk shot within the last 6 years within .59 miles from that tree and the last one was less than 30 yards!

We actually sat back down and finished lunch and then went over to check his bull out.  He wasn’t the biggest bull in the world (in fact he was the smallest antlered elk Mike has ever shot), but he was in the wrong place at the wrong time and was going to eat really good.  

Here’s a few of the glory shots of Mike’s bull.  We didn’t spend quite as much time taking pictures of him as we did of my bull a couple days earlier, but to me a bull elk DIY on public ground is still a trophy no matter how big his antlers are.

Not sure if it is the small antlers that seem to magnify it or what, but this bull really seems to have a huge body for how old he is.  We decided that there was probably a really good chance that he was related to the bull that Mike had shot within 300 yards of that spot in 2011 that was a huge bodied bull.

Here’s both of us with his bull.

We didn’t have to worry about caping this guy out so things went a little quicker getting him cut up and ready to pack out although he was on a little bit of a hill so that always makes you appreciate those rare flat spots even more.

I was very impressed with my new Stone Glacier pack again on the packout, it was so nice to just throw the meat in the load shelf and not have to worry about what to do with the stuff still in your pack.  The day had started out calling for rain so I had my rain gear and jacket in the pack along with all my other normal day pack type stuff so being able to just load the meat in there on the shelf really was nice.  I also really like the rifle sling that is part of the pack.  Very easy to access and pretty much sits right where your rifle would be if you were using a normal sling.

Here’s a picture of me hauling the first load out.

Here’s Mike with the last load out including the antlers.  We got this guy out in 2 loads each.

Mike uses an eberlestock X2 pack and it really did well too.  We weighed that load in at 75lbs when we got back to camp so he was for sure hauling his share of the weight.

Another early trip back to camp and another run for ice and we were pretty much done for the day.  It was really nice to not be looking at a 4:44 am wake up call for a fourth day in a row that’s for sure!  With both of us tagged out, we decided to just go ahead and sleep in and enjoy a day around camp with our families.  

And one of the few pictures of my wife to actually make it on the blog!

Looking back, that day spent in camp with the family was about as much fun as I’ve had in a while.  I tend to get so focused on the hunt that I almost don’t even see my family during a hunt even when they are there in camp with me.  It was so awesome to be tagged out and just spend time with them I almost think that I need to figure out a way to schedule something like that every year even if I don’t tag out.  Hard to justify sitting around camp with a high dollar unfilled tag in your pocket though.

After a great day, we had a good nights sleep and were packed up and headed back to Texas the next morning.

Headed through Grand Teton National Park on the way home we saw the first cow elk of the year!  The only elk that we had seen during the hunt were bulls.

Thought this turned out to be a really neat picture.

I think I’m going to end up stretching this out into one more post when it is all said and done.  I’ll make one more post kind of wrapping things up and going retrospective and try to get it posted in the next couple days.

That’s it for now.  Nathan