2021 and 2022 Wyoming Archery Elk Hunt
Well, I meant to write up a day to day play-by-play description of my first ever elk hunt last year, but just after the conclusion of my 18 day backcountry adventure, Covid nearly killed my wife and me, and I never got around to posting much about the hunt. Since my memory of the day to day particulars is fuzzy and faded, I'll just post some pics and hit the highlights.
Day 1
I grossly overestimated my ability to hike with ~100 lbs of gear, and I learned that I did not need 100 lbs of gear. I somehow managed to get my backpack on my back and started the 3.1 mile hike in only to realize after about 500 yards of hiking that there was no way I'd make it 3.1 miles. I hiked, in very short stints, about 1 mile in before fading light and extreme hip and leg pain forced me to find a spot to set up camp. I followed a game trail across "Roaring Fork" creek about 100 yards off the main trail in to my right, became tangled up in a bunch of thick widows and pines, busted out the other side of said thicket, tripped and fell flat on my face, and rolled over and de-packed and realized I was lying in an adequately flat spot to set up camp. As I cleared some rocks and pieces of wood from where I intended to place my tent, I noticed a decent sized lion track and proceeded to set up my tent right on top of it. Cool.
A friend sent me here, and he said the Roaring Fork was full of Brookies; when I saw this "Roaring Fork," I immediately thought my friend was full of crap and began to question his info and motivation for sending me here...the creek was little more than stretches of wet rocks and grass with a couple of tiny runs deep enough to at least fill my water bags.
After getting my camp settled, I went to fill my water bags at a small area of the creek that had a hole ~ 1' deep and 3' wide and 4" long, and I noticed a couple of 6"-8" fish dart under a rock. After getting my water hung and filtering, I went back over and dropped a small wet fly into that hole and in two minutes, I had dinner. My camp spot, while only 100 yards from a main, heavily used trail, ended up being absolute perfection, as it was completely hidden from passers-by, a mere 100' from the creek, and tucked under a cave-like cliff of rocks that towered nearly straight up ~60' high. Every night, I would sit under those rocks eating a mountain house meal with a pan fried brookie or two sipping Woodford and listening to the occasional elk bugling above me. Spectacular!
Day 2
My first morning of hunting. Since I knew nothing about this area, I waited until I could see before leaving camp and heading the next 2.3 miles to where my friend told me to camp. About 500 yards from where he pinned the camping spot on my OnX, I let out my first cow call...the first real-action elk call of my career. Almost immediately, a bull blew up across the creek to my left and up the other side of the draw about 200' above me. I was following the creek up, so I was in the bottom. While the thermals were still in my favor and would be for another 30-45 minutes, the wind that day was not, and was blowing his direction. In hindsight, I now realize that this bull was close...within 200 yards for sure and maybe within 100 yards, but this was my first go at this, and like I have done too many times with turkeys, I estimated him to be further away than what he actually was. I should have stayed put and called sparingly, but I didn't have the wind, so I decided to push on, learn the country, and circle back above him after making a 4 mile loop. The 4 mile loop turned into a seven mile blow-down-in-an-old-burn fest, and when I eventually made it back to where I was above where I had heard the bull bugle, the wind had swung around and was now blowing against the thermal flow straight to where the bull was. I got on a bench where I thought I might be on his same level, and after a hour of easing through the timber calling here and there, I let my guard down and unstealthily walked across an opening toward a wallow. The bull erupted from where he was bedded behind a blowdown about 50 yards in front and slightly above me. Dammit. Amazingly, I heard the bull crash across the blowdown, but his escape through ridiculously thick timber was completely silent after that. Amazing. So, the rest of the trip, I would hear this bull above me on various ridges here and there bugling at night. I would hear him early in the morning coming from different locations, but always heading into that thicket where I jumped him. After trying to get on him in and around that thicket for the first several mornings, I realized why he lived there. Trying to hunt him there was futile, as this spot always had funky winds blowing through it that combined with the thermals, whether they be up or down, to create a swirling, unpredictable mess as far as wind goes. The spot he was living in was absolutely destroyed and covered with fresh sign, and it was no more than 200 yards from two different, fairly heavily-used trails that split and ran above and below it. I finally gave up on him and just enjoyed listening to him in the evenings.
Days 3-18
I did a lot of hiking to some ridiculously remote and deep spots, but never got on any elk. On about day 5, I headed into town to get some provisions, and when I got back to the parking lot, I met a guy who was hunting in the area with a Cow tag. After talking a while, he told me about a good 6x6 that was pushing his cows into the meadow across the street from the parking lot every evening. He had missed two shots on cows the previous two evenings, and he told me where to set up to kill the bull. Its a longer story than even I want to type, but that bull and his cows got blown out of their routine by a drunk dood who owned a pile of the surrounding land when he and his buddies saw them in the meadow while driving by after packing out the 370-ish inch behemoth his bud killed that morning. Oh well. Regardless, I shifted gears and started hunting that area since there was at least one bull there and since it would be much easier to get a bull out of there should I luck up and kill one. Two or three mornings later, I stalked up to a high meadow where a bull was bugling. When I had finished scaling the near vertical rocks just below the meadow which put me on a small bench behind some pine trees on the edge of the meadow, I paused and bought my breath. Once I was good, I eased up and started glassing the meadow only to focus in on a huge antler that I thought was a tree branch until it came into focus. I was 25 yards from a broadside standing giant! My arrows were in my quiver, and in the time it took for me to quietly get an arrow out and nocked, the bull had disappeared. I bugled away from him once, and within seconds, I noticed him coming back between two big rocks that had a few pines around them. He was at 35 ish yards frontal...a no-go with my set-up. In hindsight, I should have challenged him with aggressive calling, but I'll know better this year. I played cat and mouse with that bull for the rest of that morning and for the next few mornings, and I got close a couple of times only to have his cows bust me twice.
All in all, it was an awesome adventure and a heck of a learning experience. I shot and connected with multiple blue grouse tail feathers, could have shot a turkey had I known what the fall season dates were when I stumbled upon them, could have shot a giant bull had I approached the bugling with an arrow nocked, and caught some magnificent tasting brook trout out of a "stream" that I didn't think was big enough to hold crawdads. I got lucky and drew a bull and cow tag for that area again. I am currently starting a 14 day Locums gig at my NoDAK hospital, but when I leave here next Sunday, I'll be heading home to pick up my gear and head back to my camping spot by the Roaring Fork.
This time, I will be hiking in about 50 lbs less gear...which will allow more room for additional Woodford and my video gear. Hopefully this time I will be able to connect, but if not, maybe I'll at least get some good footage to post up for y'alls viewing pleasure. I'm sticking with the primitive bow I built last year, but I know that if I don't connect with the bow, I'm going to connect with something during the rifle season. I hope all of you that are heading this direction with a tag in hand stumble upon a gaggle of giants, but its going to be a great time regardless. I try to be back here with some killer pics, footage, and stories sometime late September.
My tent spot...
One of many ridiculous views...
One of the "it don't get no better than this" moments...
One of the deeper holes in the mighty Roaring Fork. Can you believe there are fish in this?
700' aove my camp on the north ridge looking over to the south ridge. My camp was tucked in between about 1000 yards to the right. The first bull I encountered would bugle from here and from the ridge in the picture at some point nearly every night.
Very cool old miners cabin at ~9200'. I found this about 7.5 miles back from where my camp was located at ~7200'.
The moment I truly realized that elk are really, really tall!
Last edited by WhitewaterDuck; 08-28-2022 at 09:09 PM.
“I can’t wait ‘till I’m grown” is the stupidest @!#* I ever said!
Bookmarks