Wyoming was good to me this year - 10/21/14
The mrs. and I both drew for Wyoming this year after a dry spell on elk tags. We moved to Alaska in the spring but decided to go ahead and try to run back down and fill our elk tags this fall.
We flew into Billings on the day before the opener and drove the rental car down to Wyoming near the area we were going to hunt. The area has very limited public access for diy'ers but thanks to the WG&F's efforts on Walk in area's we were able to get into some good country without having to pay for access.
The first couple days were spent finding where the elk were and getting to know the area. We found elk on the third day and were into them every day after that. On the fifth day the mrs. was getting worn down and decided to take a day off and recuperate so I went out alone. About 4:30 in the afternoon the elk started to get up and feed, and by 5:00 I had spotted two good bunches of elk in the basin I was hunting. It took nearly a half hour to get worked into range of the herd with the largest bull and get a shot.
The shot was across a deep and steep canyon. Range was 372 yards on the first shot, the bull fell at 365 yards. First shot was a miss low, second shot entered a bit back while the bull was quartering away but went right through the boiler and put the hurting on him. Third shot was a bit high but the bull went down for good.
I was shooting a Ruger M77 in .338 Win Mag. with a Zeiss 3x9x40 scope Bullets were 225 gr. TTSX's out of Norma Brass and sent c/o 70.0 grains of H4831. Both hits were complete pass through so no bullets were recovered but the exit hole on the quartering away shot was about 3" diameter thru the offside ribcage. Overall I am pleased with the performance of the loads.
It took me until 1pm the following day to get him packed out of the hole he was in but well worth it. We flew 180 lbs of processed meat home to AK to help get us thru the winter. We went back in after another elk for Mrs Highcountry but were unsuccessful at getting into range for her before we ran out of time. We were really hoping to get her new-to-us Kimber Montana in 280AI bloodied but it wasn't meant to be.
![[Linked Image]](http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r20/highcountrybulls/Mobile%20Uploads/image_zpsa470f983.jpg)
We flew into Billings on the day before the opener and drove the rental car down to Wyoming near the area we were going to hunt. The area has very limited public access for diy'ers but thanks to the WG&F's efforts on Walk in area's we were able to get into some good country without having to pay for access.
The first couple days were spent finding where the elk were and getting to know the area. We found elk on the third day and were into them every day after that. On the fifth day the mrs. was getting worn down and decided to take a day off and recuperate so I went out alone. About 4:30 in the afternoon the elk started to get up and feed, and by 5:00 I had spotted two good bunches of elk in the basin I was hunting. It took nearly a half hour to get worked into range of the herd with the largest bull and get a shot.
The shot was across a deep and steep canyon. Range was 372 yards on the first shot, the bull fell at 365 yards. First shot was a miss low, second shot entered a bit back while the bull was quartering away but went right through the boiler and put the hurting on him. Third shot was a bit high but the bull went down for good.
I was shooting a Ruger M77 in .338 Win Mag. with a Zeiss 3x9x40 scope Bullets were 225 gr. TTSX's out of Norma Brass and sent c/o 70.0 grains of H4831. Both hits were complete pass through so no bullets were recovered but the exit hole on the quartering away shot was about 3" diameter thru the offside ribcage. Overall I am pleased with the performance of the loads.
It took me until 1pm the following day to get him packed out of the hole he was in but well worth it. We flew 180 lbs of processed meat home to AK to help get us thru the winter. We went back in after another elk for Mrs Highcountry but were unsuccessful at getting into range for her before we ran out of time. We were really hoping to get her new-to-us Kimber Montana in 280AI bloodied but it wasn't meant to be.
![[Linked Image]](http://s140.photobucket.com/user/highcountrybulls/media/Mobile%20Uploads/image_zpsa470f983.jpg.html)
