I know a bunch of you live in the heart of elk and muley country and a good number of others travel out west to huff and puff around the mountains chasing these buggers! Anyone had any luck this year or have any trips still planned? I need to live vicariously through some of y’all since I won’t be headed out to CO for a hunt until next Sept (if all goes well). I don’t care if you rifle, bow, muzzy, or whatever! Let’s hear some stories and see a couple pics from your hunts even if you came back with less than you went out!

This topic was spurred by finally putting in for my Wyoming points yesterday…..so there’s your reminder to get that done if you’re a procrastinator like me….I think you have until like 8 pm mtn time or something. I haven’t hunted Wyoming since back when my brother lived out there and tags in many areas were readily available for deer and speed goats and elk tags were much easier to come by also. Sure wish I had taken advantage of that! Dang work, family, and $!!

Happy trapping! ScottW

Standby, cow elk hunt coming up soon. I'm being excited coveted unit easy roads thousands of elk. First time drawing this unit. My daughter drew it on her first draw ever. We saw hundreds of elk everyday

Headed west tonight to hunt muleys on the high plains of Ks. I'll try and post some pics tomorrow for you

Bump

Half hour into opener for me

Nice bull Sask!! That bull's got some of everything. Looks like solid 330" to me.
Huge congrats.

I hunted mule deer in Wyoming Region Y for my first western hunt this year. I was with three buddies that had hunted the other side of the bighorns, but this was new ground to all of us. I had a blast, and I’m sure I’ll be back out there soon. It’s amazing country out there.

Anyway, we were skeptical drawing this new unit without any preference points. Online research didn’t look too promising with many hunters reporting no bucks or only spike bucks.One of the guys I was hunting with was able to do a few days of scouting before the rest of us got out there the day before the opener. He found some decent bucks and we narrowed it down to one large chunk of BLM that we wanted to hunt opening morning. The plan was to camp in the trucks/tents and pack in each morning. Opening morning rolled around and there were just three of us because one guy wasn’t able to make it until the second morning. The other two guys sat together on top of ridge and I sat just below them on a second ridge/finger about a half mile away. Us easterners aren’t the best at navigating the mountains in the dark so by the time we were setup it was already getting pretty light. It didn’t take long to start seeing bucks. I immediately had two spikes 400 yards in front of me and shortly after I noticed four more bucks sneaking up the canyon on my left about 700 out. There was a 4x4 in there but I decided he wasn’t a shooter. After watching him a minute I looked up and there were now more bucks with the spikes I front of me. One of which was nice a 4x4. All five bucks went behind some rock and I moved to be prepared for a 300 yard shot when they came out. I waited a while, longer than it should have taken, and they never showed up. I moved back to my original glassing spot and found them coming around the other side much closer than I expected. I made the final decision that he was a shooter and took a 106 yard shot at a 29 degree downward angle. The buck ran about 20 yards and stopped with blood just dumping out of his chest before tipping over.

Within a minute, one of my buddies shot and killed a smaller 4x4 on the other ridge. Just like that we had 2/4 tags filled and we were only 30 minutes into opening day. Opening night and the second morning were fairly uneventful and we noticed the bigger deer had pushed further into the public land. We weren’t really prepared and hadn’t planned for it, but we decided to pack in a few miles with enough gear to stay a couple nights. I’m sure proficient backpack hunter would have found it funny how heavy our packs were for two nights. Anyway, we got to where we wanted to camp just before sunset the second day and decided to scout for our glassing spots before dark and then set up camp in the dark. We were just over 3 miles in and it was some rugged stuff. Wouldn’t you know it, the third guy shoots a buck just as the sun is setting. We packed it back to camp for the night and then him and I packed it back out to the trucks at sunrise. We hiked back in to camp and shortly after getting back we got a call that the last guy filled his tag. We loaded up with all of the camp gear and the last deer and hiked out with some real heavy packs with smiles all around. We had all planned to hunt 10 days but the four of us tagged out in three. We spent a day butchering everything and a day coyote hunting before heading back home. It was an awesome trip, looking forward to doing it all again someday.

Awesome story and pics Robert! I often look at some of those spots out west as absolutely beautiful…..to visit…..but not sure I’d want to live there!!

Nice elk Sask! Hoping I draw a tag someday to shoot one in the flatland of NW MN!

Hope Yes Sir had some luck already!

Happy trapping! ScottW

About about a hour from shooting light here on first morning. Fired up and ready to go!

Good Luck!

And thanks to.others for pics and stories, living vicariously through you guys!

Taking the boy out for one of these this year. I hunt a couple ranches I trap on. Super places and great people. Probably just shoot a couple cow elk for the year.

We work for a rancher in Wyoming and get to hunt the place.
Took a cow elk and the spouse took a spike elk early in Oct.
Found this nice muley mid Oct and I put him down. Didn't even know he had the extras on both sides when I shot, pleasant surprise.

Might look for 1 more cow elk for burger grinding.

Those kickers are pretty darn cool. Nice buck!! Congrats

nice muley!

Great hunts guys, congrats!
Mine starts in a week or so. Probably my last, I hope i do as well.

Osky

Grey thread and posts! Great story Robert!! Congrats to y’all!

Congratulations Guys

31 deer today. 6 bucks. One mature buck with good mass, nice backs but really weak fronts.

I experienced an Elk hunt for the first time ever here in the Province of Ontario.

Got a bull tag and ended up hunting 14 days straight and put in 8 to 10 hours a day (from a treestand). I never got any actions until the second week (on Tuesday) at which time a bull with four cows showed up. Sure enough, on this day I ended up hunting on another property so I missed this first this opportunity.

As stated earlier, I have never called Elk before. However, based on good advices from members on this forum I ended up buying a call (made by E.L.K. INC made in MT.

This call only showed in the mail three weeks after I made the on-line purchase. My wife had to drive nearly 2 hours to bring this call to me. I had only had one week left so I had to try this call. I basically practiced a little while driving back to hunt camp and during the evening... I first thought I was in business...but no doubt I didn`t have the required skills of an experienced elk hunters.

Regardless, after playing with this call for couple of days I was able to bring in a bull within approximately 130 to 150 yards. This was on Thursday morning. At the time I was sure I would have a shot at it but it didn`t happen.

The landscape here is very much different to that of States such as Montana or Colorado. The area where I was hunting consisted mostly of a mixture of hard and soft wood with very healthy green foliage. Visibility was poor, basically 60 yards if that. My only option was to call it to a field or opening where I would be able to get a clear shot.

I got to call this mature bull for the second time on the last day of the hunt (Sunday). It came in for the fight but again I wasn't able to bring it close enough.

Although, I didn`t fill my tag, I had great time.

I have it on trail cam. I will see if I can download the pics.

sound like a good hunt to bad you did get it