We packed into the roadless the day before the opener, and found a big herd of cows and calfs. Within 5 minutes of us spotting them we watched a guy run down the ridge at that them and when he got within 100 yards start making all sorts of noise. He pushed the herd right off the public onto the Indian ground.
I ran down the ridge and confronted his 2 buddies waiting at their horses. They claimed he was just going to take pictures. The tag holder in the group had come into our camp at the trailhead the previous night, but he wouldn’t say anything right then. I’m thinking they were trying to bump the herd to where they weren’t so visible from the main trail, but I really don’t know.
We then found a herd of 6 bulls in the next canyon over which the same group ended up bumping onto the Indian ground as well. We did 29 miles between Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday without seeing another bison on public, and my brother was beat. We packed up, and headed to our deer unit where he was able to kill a decent 4x5 buck.
I’m working on lining things up to go back in on horses within the next few days.