elks96
Long Time Member
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So my son gave it a heck of a try on the archery season, but archery is hard when you are in football and have weekend games etc. He had opportunity but never came together right.
We tried above our house and despite 6 days of hunting between the archery and rifle season we saw exactly 0 elk. Crazy but it happens. He did get his first game animals harvest with a bow… which was pretty crazy but story is in another thread in WY section…
After that we spent the first weekend in WY after mule deer and the kids got a solid buck after some vehicle issues and 6 hours of driving opening day…
Opening day for our
Preferred area is the 15th so Thursday night we hooked up the camper and fielded the truck etc so that after school on Friday we could leave fast. Friday night we had camp set up by 7, ate a good meal and went to bed hoping to get up early and be one of the first to our preferred spot. At 5:30 almost an hour and a half before light we arrive to our spot and find 9 trucks already there… we discuss option and 2 more trucks pull up and 4 more guys head in. Crap plan a , gone. We go through plan b-z pretty fast and end up deciding it was a good morning just to look at deer, moose and explore a couple roads. By 9:30 we had found a hole where no one was so we gave it a bit of time and sat hoping that the thousands of hunters might push something to us… No luck but he got in a good nap…
So we decide to bail off the forest and head lower in hopes to escape people… We hit camp around 3 ate lunch and stayed low for the evening. We drove from camp about a 1/2 mile and found 6 cow elk in the sage. Made a move and they gave us the slip. I hate the idea of chasing animals with the vehicle so after our one close encounter we gave up the chase and watched like 5 other vehicle haul butt and never catch the group…
So for the evening we headed into and area with a bunch of roads but that held elk during the archery. But I knew the area had been hammered by deer hunters and likely elk hunters as well. We get there are 4-5 vehicles working the area and 2 guys walking with the wind horrible. It was obvious that with all the traffic the elk had left what little cover there was… knowing the area I knew of a couple holes the elk might go hide in…
The first little hole we pull up on I tell my son, the elk like to hide in this bottom, like that one there… we pull up the glass long enough to confirm it was a bull. He was and he was looking right us with nothing but open ground between us. Luckily we were over a mile out and backed the truck up out of sight and then hauled but up the creek bottom. After the sun set the bull stepped up just under 200 yards broadside. My son took the first shot. It hit but the bull did not act hit so a few follow up shots and the bull went down.
Not bad for the kid. We were definitely lucky. At 10:45 we had the bull loaded and we had dinner just after midnight…
We tried above our house and despite 6 days of hunting between the archery and rifle season we saw exactly 0 elk. Crazy but it happens. He did get his first game animals harvest with a bow… which was pretty crazy but story is in another thread in WY section…
After that we spent the first weekend in WY after mule deer and the kids got a solid buck after some vehicle issues and 6 hours of driving opening day…
Opening day for our
Preferred area is the 15th so Thursday night we hooked up the camper and fielded the truck etc so that after school on Friday we could leave fast. Friday night we had camp set up by 7, ate a good meal and went to bed hoping to get up early and be one of the first to our preferred spot. At 5:30 almost an hour and a half before light we arrive to our spot and find 9 trucks already there… we discuss option and 2 more trucks pull up and 4 more guys head in. Crap plan a , gone. We go through plan b-z pretty fast and end up deciding it was a good morning just to look at deer, moose and explore a couple roads. By 9:30 we had found a hole where no one was so we gave it a bit of time and sat hoping that the thousands of hunters might push something to us… No luck but he got in a good nap…
So we decide to bail off the forest and head lower in hopes to escape people… We hit camp around 3 ate lunch and stayed low for the evening. We drove from camp about a 1/2 mile and found 6 cow elk in the sage. Made a move and they gave us the slip. I hate the idea of chasing animals with the vehicle so after our one close encounter we gave up the chase and watched like 5 other vehicle haul butt and never catch the group…
So for the evening we headed into and area with a bunch of roads but that held elk during the archery. But I knew the area had been hammered by deer hunters and likely elk hunters as well. We get there are 4-5 vehicles working the area and 2 guys walking with the wind horrible. It was obvious that with all the traffic the elk had left what little cover there was… knowing the area I knew of a couple holes the elk might go hide in…
The first little hole we pull up on I tell my son, the elk like to hide in this bottom, like that one there… we pull up the glass long enough to confirm it was a bull. He was and he was looking right us with nothing but open ground between us. Luckily we were over a mile out and backed the truck up out of sight and then hauled but up the creek bottom. After the sun set the bull stepped up just under 200 yards broadside. My son took the first shot. It hit but the bull did not act hit so a few follow up shots and the bull went down.
Not bad for the kid. We were definitely lucky. At 10:45 we had the bull loaded and we had dinner just after midnight…
