LAST EDITED ON Nov-09-16 AT 12:53PM (MST)[p]I headed to Wyoming this year early on 8/27 and arrived at my buddy, John's, place in Sheridan in my new Silverado pulling my 19' trailer the following afternoon. We headed over the Big Horns the next day with John's new Ram diesel pulling his new JD Gator 4 seater and set up a tent camp to hunt the opening week of the archery bull elk season and scout for some good antelope bucks, both of which John drew tags for. The elk hunting was slow with the very warm weather out there and we found only a couple decent antelope that John said he would shoot during our midday scouting trips.
Then it was back to Sheridan to drop off the Gator and hook up his 7'x12'cargo trailer that was made into a camper for the out of the way places with bad roads like we were headed to in unit 6A just south of Flagstaff, AZ. We got there a day before the 9/9-9/22 archery elk season opened that John had drawn a tag for just as he had in 2011. The hunt there was a lot slower than in 2011, but we still saw plenty of elk and the bulls started bugling pretty well the second week of the hunt. We could have taken several big bull with a rifle, but it was no cigar with his archery equipment.
After the season ended we headed back to Sheridan and up through Colorado we had nasty, rainy weather almost all the rest of the way there. We took a day to do laundry and cut his yard and then were off over the BigHorns again to our normal camping spot with me pulling my trailer and John the cargo trailer for the final few days of the September archery elk season. We really got into several nice bulls and John passed on one bull that came in within 10 yards and drew on another really big bull at 18 yards and then let down because he felt his arrow might hit a tree branch. He figured the bull would take another step or two towards where I was hidden using a couple cow calls, but when the bull didn't see the cow that was calling him in he turned broadside to me at about 40 yards and had his rear to John and the gig was up as he walked off!
The afternoon of 9/29 we headed over south of Jackson to the Afton area in John's truck pulling the cargo trailer with all of our gear. We took our time and some roads that we hadn't been on before to see some new scenery and stayed in the trailer that night, arriving at our destination in the afternoon north of Afton where the outfitter John had booked with for his 2 week horseback combo moose/deer hunt lives in the Star Valley. We got set up in a nice little cabin there and then went out for the last hour or two of daylight to check a spot where the guide had been seeing a nice Shiras bull. Sure enough, just as it was last light we spotted the bull way up on the mountain in a small opening near where he had been seen several other times. We went to bed that night with fingers crossed that the bull would stay in the area, although the rut was near and they can travel a lot in search of hot cows.
The next morning we were up very early, got the horses saddled and in the trailer, and headed to the nearest trail head where the bull had been seen. After an hour or so on the horses we tied them about 1/4 mile from where we had seen the bull the night before and waited for it to get light to start glassing him up. As it got light luck would have it that the bull was right in the same little opening as the night before and the stalk was on. As we got up near where he was he went into the brush and we could hear him in a small valley that was very brushy and hard to see more than about 50 yards. As we got to a small opening we saw the bull go up out of the valley onto a fairly open hillside following a cow. John got on his sticks and when the cow lead the bull up and they turned broadside John let the bull have it with his 7 mag and a reload we had just made a few days before to get John started into reloading. The rest is history and John getting his OIL 38" bull with his first reload was cool! It took us well into the afternoon to get the bull taken care of and packed out on our three horses and to say they were invaluable for that is putting it mildly! The head/cape were taken to a local taxidermist for prepping and freezing until we could head up to Cody to the taxidermist John uses after the deer hunt part of the trip was completed. The meat was hung in the shade in pillow cases and with the cold nights it held up nicely for the next couple days while we hunted for John's deer in the Salt River Range.
The next day was rainy and we didn't see any bucks worth shooting. The third day of our stay we awoke to really nasty weather with heavy snow coming down at the cabin and fog had socked everything in making visibility no more than 100 yards possible. However, the horses got saddled and John and his guide were off to check a spot where the guides had seen a nice buck about ten miles south of camp. I decided to stay in for the day and rest my weary old bones that were feeling the lousy weather and long horseback ride the day before. I really thoughts the guys would make a short day of it with the bad weather and poor visibility and began to worry that something might have happened when they weren't back until they came in as it was getting dark. Lo and behold they had found the buck they were after about midmorning when the fog lifted enough to see 100 yards, but it dropped back in before they could get into good position for a shot. They just sat it out and the fog finally lifted enough that they could see the buck laying behind a tree while two of his smaller buddies fed around him. When the nontypical finally stood up after they had waited several hours and the fog had lifted to see decent through his scope John made the shot with a reload in his .270 that we had also done up at less than 125 yards and the buck was down for the count! The tape showed the buck would score right around 193" gross nontypical and he was a beauty.
The next day we just relaxed so John could rest up after that wet ordeal the previous day on the mountain and late in the day we picked up his frozen moose cape and horns and got the cape in a good cooler for the trip to Cody the next day. The following morning we were off for Cody at daylight, dropped off the moose and deer capes/horns at the taxidermist and then went over the mountains back to Sheridan for a couple days rest, laundry, and more grass cutting.
Next we headed back over the mountains with the cargo trailer to where we had set up camp the previous week with my trailer for the rest of our October hunts. Antelope season was open, but the elk rifle season didn't open until 10/9, so we concentrated on antelope for a couple days to fill John's tag with another good buck. One of our friends from Casper had seen a nice goat where we normally only hunt deer and elk and since he had no antelope tag told John to go for it and wack him. The first day in the area we found antelope, but not the good buck that Wade had shown us a picture of that he had taken on his phone. We were back there the next morning and finally found the buck with about 20 does and a couple smaller bucks. We followed them all over the place at a distance until we finally were able to make a good stalk on the herd using the terrain they were now in the middle of the afternoon. John made a good shot on the buck at only about 100 yards with another reload in his .270 and the rest of the afternoon was spent boning and packing the buck out 2 miles back to the truck. The horns were 14 6/8" and 15 2/8" with bases 6 2/8" and cutters that were 6 3/8" with a final gross score just shy of us getting another 80" goat like we had the previous two years! The meat from the deer John shot and the antelope was given to a needy family that works for a rancher not too far from where we hunt. All of the moose went into John's freezer and although I can't remember the exact poundage, but it was considerable!
After filling the antelope tag, that left us with the bull elk tag John had and my buck deer tag that wasn't good until 10/15 through 10/31. We also had a friend and his boy coming over from Gillette for a short weekend hunt for his bull tag and they stayed in the cargo trailer. To make a long story short, we were into a ton of elk right from the start of rifle season, but didn't see any big bulls. John shot a big 5x5 with another reload we had done for his .270 and we got Paul another nice 5x5 at daylight on the one Saturday he and his son had to join us. It was his first bull elk and that was neat because we had got his son his first bull when he had drawn his tag in 2013.
That left me two weeks to chase down a good mulie and although we had seen a ton of deer and many small bucks earlier the bucks went into their hidey holes by the time the season opened on 10/15. I finally saw a couple bucks that I would have shot the last 3 days of the season, as the better bucks started coming out to check does during daylight hours and most of the other hunters had gone home, but no decent shots were able to be taken and my tag went unfilled. However, since John had the moose in the freezer I went in 50/50 on the processing charges for his elk and brought home two big coolers of frozen, boneless cuts and a lot of burger.
As the season was coming to a close I hunted the last morning and saw the best buck I have seen out there in the past 5 or 6 years, but couldn't get a good shot at him. I hope he lasts the winter and puts on as big a rack as he had this year for next season because I know what area I'll be concentrating on a good share of the season next year. By midday we were packed up and headed back to Sheridan with both trailers and I spent the following day cleaning the trailer out and repacking. I left my trailer at John's place and that will save 3000 miles a year of hauling the thing back and forth to MI since I don't use it other than out in Wyoming.
On 11/1 I headed up to North Dakota to hunt pheasants for several days with a friend and his GSP and brought back 8 roosters with me as I got home last Saturday night. Now it's resting up time before I head up 180 miles to the cabin next Monday for our 2 week rifle season for whitetails. I lost 13# on that western trip that I didn't need to lose, so this winter when I generally gain weight that I don't want to it will be no big deal since I dropped down to 150# and need to be up in the low 160s so my pants don't fall down, LOL! Sorry this was so long winded, but it was a long time on the road this year with lots of good times and plenty of good memories. Here are a few pictures of the trip. I didn't get any field photos of John's deer since I stayed in the cabin that day, nor of his elk since my camera battery was back at camp getting charged up that day, but attached are pictures of both racks. Several pictures somehow came up sideways and I don't have time to mess with trying to get them correct, so please bear with me on that!
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Then it was back to Sheridan to drop off the Gator and hook up his 7'x12'cargo trailer that was made into a camper for the out of the way places with bad roads like we were headed to in unit 6A just south of Flagstaff, AZ. We got there a day before the 9/9-9/22 archery elk season opened that John had drawn a tag for just as he had in 2011. The hunt there was a lot slower than in 2011, but we still saw plenty of elk and the bulls started bugling pretty well the second week of the hunt. We could have taken several big bull with a rifle, but it was no cigar with his archery equipment.
After the season ended we headed back to Sheridan and up through Colorado we had nasty, rainy weather almost all the rest of the way there. We took a day to do laundry and cut his yard and then were off over the BigHorns again to our normal camping spot with me pulling my trailer and John the cargo trailer for the final few days of the September archery elk season. We really got into several nice bulls and John passed on one bull that came in within 10 yards and drew on another really big bull at 18 yards and then let down because he felt his arrow might hit a tree branch. He figured the bull would take another step or two towards where I was hidden using a couple cow calls, but when the bull didn't see the cow that was calling him in he turned broadside to me at about 40 yards and had his rear to John and the gig was up as he walked off!
The afternoon of 9/29 we headed over south of Jackson to the Afton area in John's truck pulling the cargo trailer with all of our gear. We took our time and some roads that we hadn't been on before to see some new scenery and stayed in the trailer that night, arriving at our destination in the afternoon north of Afton where the outfitter John had booked with for his 2 week horseback combo moose/deer hunt lives in the Star Valley. We got set up in a nice little cabin there and then went out for the last hour or two of daylight to check a spot where the guide had been seeing a nice Shiras bull. Sure enough, just as it was last light we spotted the bull way up on the mountain in a small opening near where he had been seen several other times. We went to bed that night with fingers crossed that the bull would stay in the area, although the rut was near and they can travel a lot in search of hot cows.
The next morning we were up very early, got the horses saddled and in the trailer, and headed to the nearest trail head where the bull had been seen. After an hour or so on the horses we tied them about 1/4 mile from where we had seen the bull the night before and waited for it to get light to start glassing him up. As it got light luck would have it that the bull was right in the same little opening as the night before and the stalk was on. As we got up near where he was he went into the brush and we could hear him in a small valley that was very brushy and hard to see more than about 50 yards. As we got to a small opening we saw the bull go up out of the valley onto a fairly open hillside following a cow. John got on his sticks and when the cow lead the bull up and they turned broadside John let the bull have it with his 7 mag and a reload we had just made a few days before to get John started into reloading. The rest is history and John getting his OIL 38" bull with his first reload was cool! It took us well into the afternoon to get the bull taken care of and packed out on our three horses and to say they were invaluable for that is putting it mildly! The head/cape were taken to a local taxidermist for prepping and freezing until we could head up to Cody to the taxidermist John uses after the deer hunt part of the trip was completed. The meat was hung in the shade in pillow cases and with the cold nights it held up nicely for the next couple days while we hunted for John's deer in the Salt River Range.
The next day was rainy and we didn't see any bucks worth shooting. The third day of our stay we awoke to really nasty weather with heavy snow coming down at the cabin and fog had socked everything in making visibility no more than 100 yards possible. However, the horses got saddled and John and his guide were off to check a spot where the guides had seen a nice buck about ten miles south of camp. I decided to stay in for the day and rest my weary old bones that were feeling the lousy weather and long horseback ride the day before. I really thoughts the guys would make a short day of it with the bad weather and poor visibility and began to worry that something might have happened when they weren't back until they came in as it was getting dark. Lo and behold they had found the buck they were after about midmorning when the fog lifted enough to see 100 yards, but it dropped back in before they could get into good position for a shot. They just sat it out and the fog finally lifted enough that they could see the buck laying behind a tree while two of his smaller buddies fed around him. When the nontypical finally stood up after they had waited several hours and the fog had lifted to see decent through his scope John made the shot with a reload in his .270 that we had also done up at less than 125 yards and the buck was down for the count! The tape showed the buck would score right around 193" gross nontypical and he was a beauty.
The next day we just relaxed so John could rest up after that wet ordeal the previous day on the mountain and late in the day we picked up his frozen moose cape and horns and got the cape in a good cooler for the trip to Cody the next day. The following morning we were off for Cody at daylight, dropped off the moose and deer capes/horns at the taxidermist and then went over the mountains back to Sheridan for a couple days rest, laundry, and more grass cutting.
Next we headed back over the mountains with the cargo trailer to where we had set up camp the previous week with my trailer for the rest of our October hunts. Antelope season was open, but the elk rifle season didn't open until 10/9, so we concentrated on antelope for a couple days to fill John's tag with another good buck. One of our friends from Casper had seen a nice goat where we normally only hunt deer and elk and since he had no antelope tag told John to go for it and wack him. The first day in the area we found antelope, but not the good buck that Wade had shown us a picture of that he had taken on his phone. We were back there the next morning and finally found the buck with about 20 does and a couple smaller bucks. We followed them all over the place at a distance until we finally were able to make a good stalk on the herd using the terrain they were now in the middle of the afternoon. John made a good shot on the buck at only about 100 yards with another reload in his .270 and the rest of the afternoon was spent boning and packing the buck out 2 miles back to the truck. The horns were 14 6/8" and 15 2/8" with bases 6 2/8" and cutters that were 6 3/8" with a final gross score just shy of us getting another 80" goat like we had the previous two years! The meat from the deer John shot and the antelope was given to a needy family that works for a rancher not too far from where we hunt. All of the moose went into John's freezer and although I can't remember the exact poundage, but it was considerable!
After filling the antelope tag, that left us with the bull elk tag John had and my buck deer tag that wasn't good until 10/15 through 10/31. We also had a friend and his boy coming over from Gillette for a short weekend hunt for his bull tag and they stayed in the cargo trailer. To make a long story short, we were into a ton of elk right from the start of rifle season, but didn't see any big bulls. John shot a big 5x5 with another reload we had done for his .270 and we got Paul another nice 5x5 at daylight on the one Saturday he and his son had to join us. It was his first bull elk and that was neat because we had got his son his first bull when he had drawn his tag in 2013.
That left me two weeks to chase down a good mulie and although we had seen a ton of deer and many small bucks earlier the bucks went into their hidey holes by the time the season opened on 10/15. I finally saw a couple bucks that I would have shot the last 3 days of the season, as the better bucks started coming out to check does during daylight hours and most of the other hunters had gone home, but no decent shots were able to be taken and my tag went unfilled. However, since John had the moose in the freezer I went in 50/50 on the processing charges for his elk and brought home two big coolers of frozen, boneless cuts and a lot of burger.
As the season was coming to a close I hunted the last morning and saw the best buck I have seen out there in the past 5 or 6 years, but couldn't get a good shot at him. I hope he lasts the winter and puts on as big a rack as he had this year for next season because I know what area I'll be concentrating on a good share of the season next year. By midday we were packed up and headed back to Sheridan with both trailers and I spent the following day cleaning the trailer out and repacking. I left my trailer at John's place and that will save 3000 miles a year of hauling the thing back and forth to MI since I don't use it other than out in Wyoming.
On 11/1 I headed up to North Dakota to hunt pheasants for several days with a friend and his GSP and brought back 8 roosters with me as I got home last Saturday night. Now it's resting up time before I head up 180 miles to the cabin next Monday for our 2 week rifle season for whitetails. I lost 13# on that western trip that I didn't need to lose, so this winter when I generally gain weight that I don't want to it will be no big deal since I dropped down to 150# and need to be up in the low 160s so my pants don't fall down, LOL! Sorry this was so long winded, but it was a long time on the road this year with lots of good times and plenty of good memories. Here are a few pictures of the trip. I didn't get any field photos of John's deer since I stayed in the cabin that day, nor of his elk since my camera battery was back at camp getting charged up that day, but attached are pictures of both racks. Several pictures somehow came up sideways and I don't have time to mess with trying to get them correct, so please bear with me on that!
