wymoosehunter
Active Member
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- 134
I drew number 49 for wild, free-ranging bison this year in Wyoming for the Jackson area hunt. After finding out my draw number, I learned that I had early October for my time slot on the elk refuge, but I planned on being done by then. Boy did I have another thing coming. My big plans to hunt early fall with my bow fell through due to work and I made my first hunt over Thanksgiving weekend, with a rifle.
When I purchased my tag, the nice lady at WY G&F in Jackson told me that about a week earlier a herd had come onto the refuge from the park and hunters shot 6 from the herd. She said one of the outfitters had found two bulls on the national forest and they had gotten one. She said to pray for snow as the buffalo were staying in the park.
My wife and son went with me and we spent the holiday in our little camper (even had a traditional turkey dinner)and glassing and trudging the national forest looking for bison and tracks since there were no buffalo on the elk refuge. We found three bulls that came from deep in Teton Park and they wandered to within 20 yards of the forest boundary, but never crossed. We spent three days spot checking them before having to head for home. We had a blast but I was feeling the pressure of a once in a lifetime hunt and with little snow to push the bison out of the high country (Teton Park) and on to legal hunt areas, I was wondering...
I went back the following week and checked with the G&F and was told that a herd had gone on a walk-about up the Gros Ventre drainage and 12 buffalo where taken (of course that was the day after I left from the first hunt). Unfortunately, I guess a number of the people who shot buffalo violated a number of game laws and some where confiscated. She again told me that they did not believe there were any bison on the refuge and that since the buffalo had gone back to the park, none had been seen or harvested.
I spent the next two days checking places that I knew had historically had buffalo and doing lots of walking and glassing, all to no avail. We saw lots of buffalo, but all were on the park.
On Saturday, we walked into a spot that is about a mile from the trail head and found a small group of bulls near the park boundary, but they were bedded and did not look like they were going to move to the forest. We decided to come back before dark and check on them.
We then drove 30 miles down to near the refuge and checked on another group of bulls that had been wandering near the forest boundary. They were close, but close doesn't count...
Two buddies had come with me for the hunt and we decided to climb to a high point and glass. About 9:30 am, we spotted two bulls bedded in an aspen grove on the elk refuge. We were about five miles away and we just got lucky spotting them (thanks to elevation). We hustled off the mountain and drove to a "designated access" point, waded the river into the refuge, and hiked about 5 miles to get to the bulls. When we peaked over the ridge and looked where they should have been, no bison. We saw tracks leading out of the grove and up and over a peak, still heading deeper into the refuge. We climbed up to the peak and looked over-no buffalo. We hadn't gone 50 yards down the draw leading off the peak, and there they where. I looked them over and decided that they were both shooters, but one was better than the other. One shot, and then instantly the work began.
I don't think twice about shooting a bull elk in the nastiest hole as I know that I can get them out, but wow, buffalo are different. They are fricking huge. Don't even kid yourself about trying to get one out on your own. Just rolling it over to gut it proved to be a herculean job, let alone gutting it. When reality set in and my plan of packing it out on my own proved to be delusional, I called Trefon's outfitting to pack the bull out. They had two giant horses and even then, it had to be cut in half to drag it out. It took almost 4 hours to drag it 600 yards to the retrieval road...
It was cold on both hunts (10-15 degrees below zero in the mornings), lots of glassing and hiking through a foot of crusted snow, and lots of miles. But boy, it sure was fun.
Anyway, enough rambling. Picture below. Merry Christmas.
WyMo
When I purchased my tag, the nice lady at WY G&F in Jackson told me that about a week earlier a herd had come onto the refuge from the park and hunters shot 6 from the herd. She said one of the outfitters had found two bulls on the national forest and they had gotten one. She said to pray for snow as the buffalo were staying in the park.
My wife and son went with me and we spent the holiday in our little camper (even had a traditional turkey dinner)and glassing and trudging the national forest looking for bison and tracks since there were no buffalo on the elk refuge. We found three bulls that came from deep in Teton Park and they wandered to within 20 yards of the forest boundary, but never crossed. We spent three days spot checking them before having to head for home. We had a blast but I was feeling the pressure of a once in a lifetime hunt and with little snow to push the bison out of the high country (Teton Park) and on to legal hunt areas, I was wondering...
I went back the following week and checked with the G&F and was told that a herd had gone on a walk-about up the Gros Ventre drainage and 12 buffalo where taken (of course that was the day after I left from the first hunt). Unfortunately, I guess a number of the people who shot buffalo violated a number of game laws and some where confiscated. She again told me that they did not believe there were any bison on the refuge and that since the buffalo had gone back to the park, none had been seen or harvested.
I spent the next two days checking places that I knew had historically had buffalo and doing lots of walking and glassing, all to no avail. We saw lots of buffalo, but all were on the park.
On Saturday, we walked into a spot that is about a mile from the trail head and found a small group of bulls near the park boundary, but they were bedded and did not look like they were going to move to the forest. We decided to come back before dark and check on them.
We then drove 30 miles down to near the refuge and checked on another group of bulls that had been wandering near the forest boundary. They were close, but close doesn't count...
Two buddies had come with me for the hunt and we decided to climb to a high point and glass. About 9:30 am, we spotted two bulls bedded in an aspen grove on the elk refuge. We were about five miles away and we just got lucky spotting them (thanks to elevation). We hustled off the mountain and drove to a "designated access" point, waded the river into the refuge, and hiked about 5 miles to get to the bulls. When we peaked over the ridge and looked where they should have been, no bison. We saw tracks leading out of the grove and up and over a peak, still heading deeper into the refuge. We climbed up to the peak and looked over-no buffalo. We hadn't gone 50 yards down the draw leading off the peak, and there they where. I looked them over and decided that they were both shooters, but one was better than the other. One shot, and then instantly the work began.
I don't think twice about shooting a bull elk in the nastiest hole as I know that I can get them out, but wow, buffalo are different. They are fricking huge. Don't even kid yourself about trying to get one out on your own. Just rolling it over to gut it proved to be a herculean job, let alone gutting it. When reality set in and my plan of packing it out on my own proved to be delusional, I called Trefon's outfitting to pack the bull out. They had two giant horses and even then, it had to be cut in half to drag it out. It took almost 4 hours to drag it 600 yards to the retrieval road...
It was cold on both hunts (10-15 degrees below zero in the mornings), lots of glassing and hiking through a foot of crusted snow, and lots of miles. But boy, it sure was fun.
Anyway, enough rambling. Picture below. Merry Christmas.
WyMo
