A friend and I hunted Wyoming's region G this year. Here is the story with some pics...
We left MN on Thursday evening September 23rd. We drove straight through and we were in Jackson by noon on Friday. A quick bite at DQ and one last crack at the porcelain pot. We hunted Friday afternoon, all day Saturday and Sunday morning around Middle Ridge. We saw one decent buck, but he was no where to be found by the time we got over in his vicinity. We looked at the GPS Saturday evening and we had covered about 14 miles. My legs felt great....
Sunday, we met up with Wan Wolfley to get our horses up by Waterdog lake. We planned to hunt Sunday afternoon until Friday afternoon on Grayback ridge. Long story short, one of the horses got away from us while we were packing him up. Cowboys we ain't and I just about filled my deer tag with a horse. We ended up heading up to the top of the ridge Monday morning.
We set up a pretty sweet camp and were hunting by 2pm that afternoon. I saw one nice deer moving through some timber and had my friend head in his direction. Neither of us saw the deer again, but on the way over to look for the deer my friend watched a decent 3x4 for about 5 minutes. He decided it was early and he passed on an easy shot.
Tuesday morning we headed out to the same basin where he had watched the 3x4. We saw a deer that he wanted to put a stalk on. 30 minutes later I heard a shot. I got up to my buddy and he said he thought he had hit the deer pretty well. We found a few specs of blood and search the basin, but couldn't find the deer. We were both pretty dissapointed, but tried to remain optomistic. The horses needed water so decided to try to bring them down the side of the mountain. Big mistake. After finally getting them to water, we realized we couldn't go up the way we came. We had to find a horse trail that took us several miles out of the way. We ended up camping out that night - no sleeping bags, tent or warm clothes.
That was a long night.
The next morning we purified water. Boy, that's a rewarding job...
We made it back to our main camp at noon. We ate, napped, cleaned up and were back out hunting by 3pm. We were headed up to a nice vantage point that overlooked a couple of basins. A cool storm came up as we headed to our spot.
As we walked up to where my buddy wanted to hunt, I looked down this cliff and noticed something was looking at me. It took about a second for me to realize that a decent buck was staring straight up at me. After the wild west shootout - he was down.
After some pics and gutting him, we headed back to camp. We decided we would come back tomorrow morning with the horses. We had just made it out of the basin and to the top of the ridge when the fog/rain/wind/snow/sleet hit. It was a bit stressfull. We had a 2+ mile hike back to camp and we couldn't see more than 2 or 3 feet in front of us. Thank God for GPS. We got back to camp(very relieved) and got some sleep. The next day was all fog...we got to my deer, quartered and packed him out. We decided to get down off of the mountain a day early. It was a bit of a relief.
It's amazing, one minute you can love the mountain and the next it can scare the hell out of you.
We ended up taking Friday off. Some beer, a couple of beds, a toilet and a shower was what the doctor ordered. We hit one of our honeyholes on Saturday. A couple of moose, some does and fawns was all we could muster...
Our emotions were all over on this hunt - up and down. The highs were high, and the lows were low. I already told my wife that I will not be applying next year - I regret that now!!!
huntertj
We left MN on Thursday evening September 23rd. We drove straight through and we were in Jackson by noon on Friday. A quick bite at DQ and one last crack at the porcelain pot. We hunted Friday afternoon, all day Saturday and Sunday morning around Middle Ridge. We saw one decent buck, but he was no where to be found by the time we got over in his vicinity. We looked at the GPS Saturday evening and we had covered about 14 miles. My legs felt great....
Sunday, we met up with Wan Wolfley to get our horses up by Waterdog lake. We planned to hunt Sunday afternoon until Friday afternoon on Grayback ridge. Long story short, one of the horses got away from us while we were packing him up. Cowboys we ain't and I just about filled my deer tag with a horse. We ended up heading up to the top of the ridge Monday morning.
We set up a pretty sweet camp and were hunting by 2pm that afternoon. I saw one nice deer moving through some timber and had my friend head in his direction. Neither of us saw the deer again, but on the way over to look for the deer my friend watched a decent 3x4 for about 5 minutes. He decided it was early and he passed on an easy shot.
Tuesday morning we headed out to the same basin where he had watched the 3x4. We saw a deer that he wanted to put a stalk on. 30 minutes later I heard a shot. I got up to my buddy and he said he thought he had hit the deer pretty well. We found a few specs of blood and search the basin, but couldn't find the deer. We were both pretty dissapointed, but tried to remain optomistic. The horses needed water so decided to try to bring them down the side of the mountain. Big mistake. After finally getting them to water, we realized we couldn't go up the way we came. We had to find a horse trail that took us several miles out of the way. We ended up camping out that night - no sleeping bags, tent or warm clothes.
That was a long night.
The next morning we purified water. Boy, that's a rewarding job...
We made it back to our main camp at noon. We ate, napped, cleaned up and were back out hunting by 3pm. We were headed up to a nice vantage point that overlooked a couple of basins. A cool storm came up as we headed to our spot.
As we walked up to where my buddy wanted to hunt, I looked down this cliff and noticed something was looking at me. It took about a second for me to realize that a decent buck was staring straight up at me. After the wild west shootout - he was down.
After some pics and gutting him, we headed back to camp. We decided we would come back tomorrow morning with the horses. We had just made it out of the basin and to the top of the ridge when the fog/rain/wind/snow/sleet hit. It was a bit stressfull. We had a 2+ mile hike back to camp and we couldn't see more than 2 or 3 feet in front of us. Thank God for GPS. We got back to camp(very relieved) and got some sleep. The next day was all fog...we got to my deer, quartered and packed him out. We decided to get down off of the mountain a day early. It was a bit of a relief.
It's amazing, one minute you can love the mountain and the next it can scare the hell out of you.
We ended up taking Friday off. Some beer, a couple of beds, a toilet and a shower was what the doctor ordered. We hit one of our honeyholes on Saturday. A couple of moose, some does and fawns was all we could muster...
Our emotions were all over on this hunt - up and down. The highs were high, and the lows were low. I already told my wife that I will not be applying next year - I regret that now!!!
huntertj
After a week I always forget the bad stuff. Congrats on a nice buck!
