Kenetrek Boots

2024 WY Elk Hunt Recap

JAG

Well-known member
Joined
Mar 2, 2020
Messages
376
Location
Alabama
Long time poster, fourth hunt, first elk. I'm from Alabama and this will be my first time to post about a successful elk hunt after four attempts to apply what I learned from Jacobsen and Newberg. I've hunted twice in Wyoming and twice in Colorado all four times with my two sons (I have a third who's just now getting old enough to come with us). I've always purchased a youth tag (except once in WY when the Special draw was at such a discount of $1,300) with the hopes of getting them one first and the fourth time was a charm.

I posted about my e-scout plan for Wyoming General W here. We applied as a party with another father/son duo with 8 points since we had no idea what point creep was going to do. I had a plan to split up glassing assignments, but they did not want to split up and were averse to trusting GoHunt maps. Since he had the most points, I offered him 'first right to refuse' any elk we saw. He hunted elk before, but it was from a base camp and driving around glassing from a truck. This would be their first time to backpack into the woods and hunt elk this way. We started out with four llamas, but due to a combination of high confidence in filling both bull tags and after I saw how much extra stuff they brought, I added two (2) more llamas.

The first night we got there, unpacking and repacking Llamas was a new experience for us. It took longer than expected. We ended up hiking in the dark through a basin that had no named trail through it, lots of deadfall, and unexpected steep inclines. The thinner air added to the shock. We ran into outfitters on horses who were coming in the opposite direction. Man, they move so fast through thick forest!

We only made it halfway up the drainage that I expected to go, so we set up camp in the dark and continued on the next morning. The morning hike was wonderful and we made it to our new camp within a decent time, and even saw a couple of grouse. My pellet gun (for quiet discharge) scope was smashed and it turned out to be way off. We were not able to capitalize on them this time.

1730402866849.jpeg

That evening, I had a good glass location within one mile of camp, but it was a steep climb greeted with 35-40 mph winds at the top. With jeans and sweatpants on, two guys wanted to go back to camp at 5PM. My son vouched for them since he had thin nylon pants and no long underwear at the time. We found a good base camp with water and feed for the llamas. Stream water was close by as well:

IMG_1178.JPEGIMG_1179 (1).JPEG

The stars on the first night were terrific and my phone surprised me after I turned the flash off:

IMG_1166.JPEG

My family and I are avid fans of the Outdoor Boys on YouTube. During our last stop at the grocery, he insisted that he get the ingredients to make the same bread Luke makes when he goes camping. So we cooked that up and it was fabulous!

IMG_1169.JPEG

No elk yet, but we saw lots of sign on the way in, but it did seem slightly old. Here's the basin we glassed the first night:

1730404873213.jpeg

The next couple of days we glassed and glassed three (3) areas that I swore would be productive from my research coupled with confirmation from a biologist that they were good for the first half of October. We were entering a transition from rut to post rut and continued to focus on north-facing slopes. Here are a few of these areas we glassed:


IMG_1197.JPEG
On the fourth day of the hunt, we went to a location that had numerous springs (not shown on any map) emerging from various locations on north-facing slopes, about 10-15 meadows within the trees of these slopes, and was the second-most remote corner of the unit. Later in the hunt, we also found two unmarked waterfalls (20' and 5' high) located in an obscure cut within this basin. You can't see them unless you are right on them.

As we side-hilled to a central knob that jutted up in the middle of this basin, we saw two (2) older raghorns moving through from left to right as if they were initially spooked, but initial shock wearing off and slowing to a steady gallop. They eventually moved down to a willow-filled drainage and around a bend, out of sight. We decided to glass from the open hillside and watch for a while.

As we sat, we saw a cow moose by herself meandering from right to left by the willows and grass above them. Suddenly, one of the elk from the first group of two darted out the opposite direction and began to slow down after seeing the cow moose. The two made eye contact and the cow moose kept following him. The bull elk kept looking back at the cow and running away as if he was trying to tell her, "dude, lady! not my type!". These comical interactions lasted for a few minutes until they disappeared into the timber. About 20 minutes later, we moved on to get to the knob we intended to glass.

As we crested the knob, we saw an outfitter on horseback with a second pack horse behind him and circled around various islands of timber. We assume someone shot one of the two bulls and were trailing it. We figured we didn't hear the shot since it was on the other side of the steep knob.

The outfitter ended up disappearing and we thought this basin was going to be dead, but continued to glass and watch anyway.

From this knob, we glassed to the south while facing a wide, gentle, north-facing slope. At about 9AM, we saw a group of six elk to our 10 o'clock feeding in the shade. It looked like there were two (2) raghorns in this group; just under a mile from us.

20 minutes later, another group of eight elk skylined to our 2 o'clock, slowly filtering over the rim of the basin into the next unit. We saw two (2) bulls in this group; one looked nice with whale tales on the tips. I assume a 6 point, but it was too far away to count. These were about 1.5 miles away as the crow flies.

More to come...
 
Below is the group of six located to our 10 o'clock in the southeast corner of the basin (nw facing slopes).

1730468961574.png

Below is where we saw a group of eight (8) to our 2 o'clock (northeast facing slopes). Here, they were getting the most sun and seemed to be heading out over the saddle to find tree-cover. In the photo, there's at least three.

1730468851418.png

We ended this morning in high spirits about how to approach the group of six. We got the boys, ate lunch, and planned to hike one mile around the group of six to a vantage point that looked as if it gave us an approach that would allow us to be above them, but also allow us to drop down and approach them from the side and or below.


The hike ended up being two (2) miles with an unexpected amount of switchbacks and more than expected number of steep climbs. As we got to within 0.5 miles of where we wanted to be, we saw that the outfitter was packing out an elk from the woods where we would approach the group of six.

We continued to glass, saw nothing for the rest of the day, and hiked back in the dark. The hike back was pretty miserable as I missed a few key landmarks and backtracked several times. However, the hike was better in that we climbed higher in the beginning to skip the mini-ravines and drainages that plagued our sidehill attempts that morning.

Earlier this year, I befriended a local and he had a few spots that I could have checked out. However, in his wisdom he told us to stick with the spot I found and chose saying they would likely come back. He was familiar with the place, but never on his own since it was just too far. We agreed after licking our chops and sleeping in a little that day.

We returned to glass at about 10 AM with a plan to hang there all day. We eventually saw a herd three (3) miles from us that reached 40-50 head and bedded in two groups of thick timber. It appeared that they might come our way. We decided to wait until evening to make our play in the hopes that other groups would appear from the timber in our immediate basin.

At about 3PM, my buddy woke me from my siesta to observe a small herd of elk splashing and playing in a wallow just one mile away as the crow flies. We got our stuff together and made a bee line straight to them. We got within 200 yards and saw three bulls in the group. In setting up their Deathgrip tripod, they closed the twist clamps and made this god-awful kak-kak-kak noise that the elk herd and decided to look our way. We froze for what seemed like an eternity until they started to graze again.

While in close, we noticed a total of three bulls; one young six point, a five point, and a four point. One of the cows had an orange collar which was cool, but she was the most alert. We had a cow tag and I told my buddy she needs to get shot for being such a Karen and looking dumb.

Since there were three bulls, we decided to get in closer so we both had a shot. I thought the tripod noise was just a mistake, but they started setting it up again inside 150 yards and it made that noise. This time, they let out 2-3 barks and started to run off. I let out a cow call and some of them looked back, but gradually jogged (not ran) off.

I got fussed at for trying to be too ambitious and get in closer. I wanted to get in closer since we had a chance at filing two tags. Had I known the tripod was such a pita, staying at 200 yards with a shot at one bull would have been good.
 
The second to the last day of the hunt ended up without seeing anything in the morning, but the evening went well. We saw a herd of six with one bull in there 1.5 miles from us on the upper 2/3 of a slope located behind another ridge which the top was just below our ability to see the elk bed. This happened at about 1PM and we decided to make a play on it.

The elk were to the southwest from us, but on a northeast-facing slope that was mostly this gray dirt that looked like the surface of the moon. The prevailing wind was moving from west to east (right to left for us) at a speed/strength that I thought was almost fool -proof. With the amount of time in the day, I decided we should go for it.

I had a cattail flowerhead that I used constantly on this stalk as we approached from the northeast, up the slope and then we would get to their level and approach from the side; west to east, into the wind. This tool is great since the fibers don't dissipate and you can watch them blow away or show the wind swirl up close and far away. Plus one head lasts for a very long time.

After the first mile of dropping down in elevation and climbing up, we had about 800 yards to go; about where we took the following picture:
1730578599457.png

We made it to the lower second ridge that ran parallel to the slope they were bedded on (purple x's above). At this, we decided to proceed to the west with the prevailing wind and around the end of it. As we did, the wind swirled solidly uphill despite our being in a mixture of shade, sun, and what I thought was a strong enough prevailing wind. The fibers told us we were wrong.

The wind swirled a second time; knowing this, we continued on to the end and made our turn to the east into the wind towards the bedded elk (green line).

We saw lots of fresh scrapes, droppings, and a couple of new springs that supplied wallow activity in this area. Again, these were springs that did not appear on any of our maps:

1730578771062.jpeg

The bedding location was tricky to locate on the map, but we determined that we found where the elk was when we observed fresh pee on the dirt. Feeling dejected, we moved on and found another place to glass. On the way, we found a grouse, but declined to shoot it since we were in the thick of elk:

1730579110926.jpeg
 
This stalk was blown due to attempting to beat the thermals. We thought we could beat them by side-hilling into the elk bedding area with a strong enough prevailing wind, but the elk were smarter than this.

We found another glassing knob that was below the areas we wanted to look at. Typically higher is better, but sometimes glassing from below gives a great advantage. This was the case this evening and we saw four cows and a yearling pop out in front of me and my son. I approached my buddies and told them about these, but they spotted what appeared to be the herd we attempted to stalk earlier today. They asked us to go with them, but I declined and wanted to see if something else came out in the place we saw these cows/and a yearling.

I went back to my son and he spotted a herd of 40 and was flipping out. So we made a move to get in position for them and ended up going through a random drainage that had a couple of waterfalls in it. We kept pressing through and made it to the other side. As it turned out, the herd must have spotted us side-hilling in the open about 650 yards away since they were nowhere to be found once we made it out on the other side.

I practiced a lost calf call just for fun and it worked instantly- two cows popped out on the ridge, but they saw us since I was in the open, again. I heard about this trick and was intrigued, but still didn't think it would work. Never call for elk when you are sitting in the open grass!

My two buddies came out of the waterfall area slower than we did and ended up in the drink through the process. After this, we headed back to camp to dry out their jeans and sweatpants over the fire. So thankful for my stove; this really does dry out wet clothes and boots.

The last day came and went quickly; we saw the herd of 40 again and several others, but they were all too far to get to. We still tried and made a valiant effort to get in close, but the elk ended up moving on before we could get to them. By that time it grew dark.

We hiked home with six llamas empty of elk carcasses and were thrilled with the amount of intel we gathered from this trip. Especially the kind that doesn't appear on any e-scouting activity. I was also encouraged by the amount of elk I found in places that I concluded from my own research where the elk were located.

Most of the elk were about 5-6 miles from the trailhead and behaved how elk like to behave. Once we got home, I told my son who needed to get to California for A-School training that we needed to stop by Wyoming on the drive over.

My glorious wife and son agreed to add another two days to our five-day drive to California. With this, we started to turn our trip into a mission.
 
....
My glorious wife and son agreed to add another two days to our five-day drive to California. With this, we started to turn our trip into a mission. ...
We had a nine (9) day rest period in between this hunt and my drive to California to drop my son off for A-School with the USCG and fly back. We added two (2) days to the drive since Wyoming was only 6 hours out of the way. We drove straight through from Alabama to the trailhead by driving in shifts and made it in 26 hours. We made three pit stops after we entered Wyoming.

[On the way there, I spoke with a local to talk smack about Elk Mountain and listen to the local gripe about Eshelman and how his ranch hands weren't the only ranchers in the unit harassing hunters who tried to corner cross. I was told Eshelman would be withdrawing the suit, but this scuttlebutt doesn't seem to add up with published information.

Elk Mountain:
1730728278203.png

[We stopped to get last-minute items at a Walmart and met Jeff Shellburg with his owl, 'Hoot'. He said he was meeting with Kevin Costner and my son wanted to hang around for a bit for him to show up. We didn't get any pictures since he was charging $150 a pop. We saw his photo book of all the famous people and films 'Hoot' was in. Here's a brief write-up: https://cowboystatedaily.com/2023/09/09/meet-hoot-a-wyoming-owl-know-around-the-globe/]

[On a third pit stop, I found a liquor store selling green and red Weller for some collector friends back home. On the back end, I bubble-wrapped them and put them in the gun case for air travel.]

Once I turned on the dirt road to the trailhead, I thought, "oh man we are so close! To my surpise, it said 56 miles... with 3 hours left!? I chose to be okay with this suprise since it was a great reminder of how wonderful Wyoming is with its vast amounts of public land. Also it makes it the the longest and most fun dirt road I've been on. Public land states are such a blessing!

Back to the hunt. We found an alternate trail that took us to the backside of this basin where I discovered 'elk acting like elk' which was four (4) miles to a spike camp and two (2) more to the glassing knob. No llamas this time; just me and my son - no vacation or trip, but a mission.
Saw a couple of moose on the way in; one of them collared:
1730729250195.jpeg

We had a few minutes of dusk to get unloaded and packed up. We hit the trail at dark, hiked four miles to our spike camp in a cluster of trees:

1730729385933.jpeg

We were two miles from the honey-hole basin I was certain we would find elk. We slept in a little bit the next morning and hiked two more miles to a couple of knobs.
 
Final hunt recap post, I promise. I really didn't expect it to be this long, sorry...

We found an excellent glassing spot, but it wasn't where I wanted to be. We sat an hour, made notes for the next time, made a fire and moved on since we needed water anyway. We made our way to one of the unmapped springs I found. Per the pic below, it was running lower. Two weeks earlier, all of these rocks were covered in water gushing out of the hillside. Mountain springs are so cool!

1730730679204.jpeg

Made it to our knob and found two grouse. We hadn't seen any elk all day and were getting ready to relocate and harvest one for supper. Fortunately, my son caught a glimpse of an elk out of the corner of his eye just 800 yards away at about 4PM.

Grouse hunt canceled, cue the mad scramble, this bull - at least a 5 PT maybe a crab claw six, but at least 5, was just 800 yards away moving left to right, into the prevailing wind (soft to moderate to the east) with thermals getting ready to go solidly down.

Here are the first two (2) images of what we saw:

1730731100509.jpeg
1730731072058.jpeg

We proceeded in the opposite direction, from right to left to get concealed in a ravine and stalk him blind, refilled water then proceeded through the trees to the east. We marked the bull on our GoHunt app and located the meadow that he was most likely headed. This led to our fastest 1.5 mile stretch with our packs. We didn't see the bull again until he was 300 yards away, grazing in an east-facing meadow.

My son spotted him first and we both felt the thrill pounding in our throats. With the shadows getting longer, this was a shootable distance, but I wanted to get just a tad closer.

Deep breaths, another cluster of trees was conveniently 100 yards closer. We moved down to see the bull without him seeing us. My son slinked from the closest cluster of trees to another one that would give him a better view. I'm about 20 yds behind my son- still no shot. On the video through my ollin adapter, my whisper-scream, "Shoot him! shoot him!, Shoooooot HIIIM!.

"I don't have a shot, I'm behind a tree!" As the elk is moving away, I let out a terrible first-squeak cow call to stop it. In my subconcious, I sought to erase the first attempt with an immediate correction 'eeE-uuh' in sweet perfection.

Instead of just stopping, the bull lifted its head, turned 180* and came back!. As it did, he kept grazing and looking into our narrow pocket of trees.

Again, I resorted to whisper-screaming, "SHOOT HIM, for the love of God, please shoot him!!" ... Boom! One-shot to the heart, the bull ran uphill, towards our camp, and collapsed after 30 yards under the lead impact of a 7 mm-08 mag, 150-grain Core-Lokt, Walmart special.

1730732888270.jpeg


1730732926257.jpeg
1730732994016.jpeg
1730732967425.jpeg
1730733072866.jpeg
 
Last edited:
Back
Top