Wyoming Hunting

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Friday - February 3, 2012

The National Elk Refuge located near Jackson, Wyoming is currently the winter home to over 6,000 elk and around 600 bison. The animals migrated later this season because of the late spring run off, and they were able to forage for food longer.

Tuesday - November 22, 2011

For a little bit of a change of pace, let’s talk about moose hunting as a nonresident.  Because I’m trying to focus on DIY hunts, I’m going to ignore Canada’s opportunities and resident-only hunts in the US.  By limiting our scope to states that offer nonresident moose hunting we have just a handful of places to consider:  Alaska, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Vermont, Maine and New Hampshire.

Tuesday - November 15, 2011

Elk in Jackson Hole Wyoming have had their migration route cut off and have come to rely on state and federal feedlots, in what is known as the National Elk Refuge. Jackson Hole, Wyoming is home to deer, pronghorn, and elk along with other animals. Jackson Hole is lovely during the summer, but not very life sustaining during the winter months. Elk did not winter there before their migration route was cut off by development.

Thursday - November 3, 2011

In my last article on record book mule deer research, I really focused on Colorado, which is head and shoulders above the other Rocky Mountain States in terms of recent and historical mule deer entries. This time, I’d like to go into a little more depth on New Mexico, Wyoming, and Idaho, which are the next three highest entry states (but even combined wouldn’t reach Colorado’s total).  That’ll leave Arizona, Utah, Montana and Nevada for the next entry.  I’ll leave the three Pacific states out of this series, and maybe save them for a blacktail article down the road.  There’s so few mule deer entries from California, Oregon, Washington and Great Plains states like Kansas, Nebraska, the Dakotas, Texas and Oklahoma that you really can’t learn anything or find much for patterns that you didn’t already expect based on the species distribution.

Monday - October 31, 2011

Yet another hunter has been attacked by a grizzly bear. Timothy Hix of Jackson, Wyoming was elk hunting on Sunday in Grand Teton National Park. He was headed south over Glacier Overlook and surprised what he believes to be a grizzly bear. The grizzly bear was about 10 yards away. Hix did not have his pepper spray ready, so he dropped to the ground and covered his head. The bear bit him a couple of times, and may have swiped at him.

Tuesday - October 25, 2011

I could just title this article, “why Colorado is the best overall state for mule deer hunting," but since that won’t apply to trophy research for elk in future articles, let’s just go with Record Book Research.  It had been a while since I last picked up a Boone and Crockett Record book, as my last edition was dated 1996 (Records of North American Elk and Mule Deer, 2nd edition).  I was obviously way overdue, and looking at 50 year old records from the heyday of mule deer hunting just doesn’t really apply any more.  Anyway, I did finally pick up the soon to be outdated 27th Big Game Awards book (2007-2009), which has the latest deer and elk entries, and wanted to share some of my findings and assumptions with you.

Saturday - October 22, 2011

While writing my last entry on easy hunts, I felt that doing a late season or mule deer rut hunt was just too large of a topic to cover in a single paragraph. There are many aspects to mule deer rut hunting, especially as a trophy hunt, but here I wanted to focus on finding those mid to late November and early December hunts for an easier hunt.

Three aspects make these hunts a higher success opportunity. One is the seeking phase of the rut. Bucks will be more actively looking for does, and therefore on the move a little more, increasing their visibility. Two, they tend to congregate in areas of increased visibility during the rut, as winter ranges are not usually heavily timbered. Three, there are simply more deer in a smaller area.  All of these factors combine to typically increase success by 10 to 20% (sometimes much, much more) in a unit from say a mid October Colorado 2nd season hunt to a mid November 4th season hunt.

Sunday - October 16, 2011

The last article on introducing new hunters to the sport got me to thinking about what makes for an easy hunt out west.  Very few general season units have success rates above 30%, and finding units where the general public can score at least 50% of the time is pretty rare.  My focus here isn’t going to just be meat hunts, but high success, good opportunity to get into game types of hunts.  Some of these will require advanced planning and preparation and/or a few preference points.

So let’s define “easy” here. I’m talking about hunts that can be pretty close to a sure thing with only a fair amount of physical effort as long as you aren’t too selective in your harvest criteria.  Though I mostly intended an article like this for new or inexperienced hunters, these are the kind of hunts that I consider “meat hunts," with or without toothpicks (antlers).

Wednesday - October 12, 2011

A gray wolf that had lost its fear of humans and was repeatedly visiting developed areas in the park, has been put down. The gray wolf had approached visitors several times and liked to remain in the more developed areas of the park. Hazing attempts to scare off the wolf were unsuccessful. Due to the history of fearless behavior, Park Officials had to make the decision, and with the best interest of visitors and rangers in mind they decided to put the wolf down.

Thursday - October 6, 2011

I’m an incessant unit hopper. I have a handful of places that I like to return to, but it seems like I’m adding at least one or two new units every year to the rotation.  This can be a good or bad thing, depending on what you’re after.  Some people like a known entity and stability, others are always after greener pastures. So what I’d like to address in this article is the possible rationale for staying put or pushing on. 

Very few people have always hunted the same place out west. Some people grow up going to an elk camp that only hunts a specific area, but the vast majority had an elk or deer camp that has moved around a few times in their lifetimes. I’ve talked to people who refuse to move on, either because they feel like they know the woods they hunt and don’t want to learn a new area, or because they doubt they could convince the rest of the camp that it’s time to find greener pastures.