Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting 2020 Wyoming Elk Hunt

I wanted to put some pictures up for you all and write a quick one on our hunt. The Old Goat, my little brother (Jake), Joel, Matt and I drew tags for Wyoming's general elk hunt this year. It is a pretty danged coveted tag by me since I love the bull hunt and only get to draw it about once a year. Anyhow, as with all good hunts, we prepared a pile of camp food at home, my brother drove down from NY and him and I departed from Va to get to Wyoming to scout a bit before the opener.

We got into Wyoming first and set up camp which consisted of the old Cabelas tent, little woodstove and some other pieces of essential camp gear.

[img]https://hosting.photobucket.co...920&height=1080&fit=bounds[/img]


[img]https://hosting.photobucket.co...920&height=1080&fit=bounds[/img]

[img]https://hosting.photobucket.co...920&height=1080&fit=bounds[/img]

Anyhow, we scouted around some of the places I'd been in before that have held elk, but the few days before the opener were horrendous with wind. 40 MPH and some larger gusts that were non stop.

Bill showed up with his rig and we all started doing what we usually do, which is try to find some elk. Bill, like a wapiti sniffing bloodhound, found a good bunch of elk fairly close to where we were camping, so that was his first place of attack. Jake and I decided to give it a go up at Bill's Tree. We named the tree this quite a few years ago, since rarely will you sit and glass there and not find elk.

Anyhow, the opener had us in these two places. Jake and I up at Bill's Tree, while Joel and Bill went to the area he'd found elk the day before.

Bill was the first one of us to get on elk and crushed a good cow at 266 yards with his 280 Ackley and a 160 Accubond. Jake and I had no idea, but Jake mentioned he heard a shot near where they were supposed to be hunting.

[img]https://hosting.photobucket.co...920&height=1080&fit=bounds[/img]

[img]https://hosting.photobucket.co...920&height=1080&fit=bounds[/img]

Jake and I saw a real good bull cruising through the meadow around 1030-1100 that morning but he never slowed down, then about 5 minutes behind him another young bull was right on his heels. We were sorta bummed out but figured they may pop out in the evening. It was a nasty day on the mountain, right around 35-40 degrees with the wind just hammering us all day long. No real place to get behind cover to hide, but we stuck it out knowing that anything could happen.

Anyhow, it was getting towards the end of the day, Jake and I taking turns glassing the timber and watching the meadows. Well, Jake said, "Scotty, its your turn, but I don't think anything is coming out".. Well, as soon as I sat down I said "Jake, those 5 elk in the meadow don't count?" LOL! Well, as it happened, 5 came, then a few more, then some more... On and on..

[img]https://hosting.photobucket.co...920&height=1080&fit=bounds[/img]

There ended up about 30-35 cows and a handful of spikes in the above meadow. I was glassing and trying to sort out a branched antler bull in the group. It was Jake's turn to shoot first last year, so he was the first up on the gun. The majority of the elk were around 600-700 yards which was well within his range, but the wind was our enemy that day and we both knew we'd need to have to wait for a lull in the winds, which was happening once the sun had set down.

Finally, I found the bull, still pushing cows around and bugling on Oct 15th. I was like magic, he pushed out of the timber on the right of the picture and I immediately had Jake get set up on a rock shelf just above where we were glassing. Once I had the bull I moved up and laid down next to him and we went over Jake's dope which ended up being 3.0 mils on his 300 Win Mag at 675 yards with a 200 grain Accubond. We figured about a 1/2 mil of wind even when the gusts lulled and I asked him to unload the rifle and start dry firing a few times on the bull. I knew he could make the shot since we'd spent all summer shooting and had shot out to 800 with the gun and a few others. On top of the excitement of keeping track of the bull, making sure he had a solid rest, it was COLDER than a dickens laying on that rock.

Anyhow, the bull turned and went back into the timber. I was a little dismayed, but all of the cows were still bedded and some up and feeding all over the meadow. Then the big fella came back out and stood hammer still, let out a bugle and stood there. I told Jake he could pass the bull, but if he wanted to take him, now was the time. He said he felt good after dry firing previously. He loaded up the rifle, we double checked the dope and I kept my bins trained on the bull. When I felt a lull in the wind, Jake pressed the trigger and the bull locked UP! He was just standing and turned a few steps towards the timber, at this point with an elk on its feet and knowing he had a bullet in him, I said Jake move down ridge 30 yards so you can get a good finisher on him and that's exactly what he did, watching through my bin's, I heard the shot and the bull was laid out flat. I said, reload, get on the gun and be ready with another in case he twitches.

You all know what a bear it can be if an elk makes it into the timber, so I was trying to make sure we kept the big fella in the meadow.

Anyhow, after a minute or so, with no movement, I jumped up and I swear I lifted Jake off the ground. You have no idea how happy I was my little brother had just took his first bull.

[img]https://hosting.photobucket.co...920&height=1080&fit=bounds[/img]

I'll try to edit the picture, but if you look at the V of the meadow, along the right hand side, you can just see the bull, laid out.

At that point we skiddaddled down the face we were on and tried to figure out how to get up the otherside. We broke out of the timber with headlamps on our heads.

We climbed up the meadow a bit and started scanning as we went.

[img]https://hosting.photobucket.co...920&height=1080&fit=bounds[/img]

Then we found the big guy near the edge of the meadow. I was happy to see he was a great public land bull. I never had a chance to get the spotter set up on him, but he is just a great public land Wyoming 6x6.

We took a bunch of pictures as best we could in the dark, then started skinning, caping and quartering the big devil.

[img]https://hosting.photobucket.co...920&height=1080&fit=bounds[/img]

Once we got elk deep in skinning, me, being the lunatic I am wanted to trace the bullet and see what happened and how the 200 grain Accubond did, as if it weren't already obvious... HAHAHAHAHA

Well, we found the first shot.

[img]https://hosting.photobucket.co...920&height=1080&fit=bounds[/img]

The bullet had hit tight behind the front leg and was in the hide, mid rib cage on the far side. Great performance. The second shot whistled through his neck. I am pretty sure he never held for any wind when he shot the follow up shot and it traveled the 10" or so forward and pounded right on thru his neck.

Anyhow, by now it was getting late, we hustled, got the hide off, quartered, head/shoulder caped and meat hung in the timber. We both took a pair of fronts and backstraps off the mountain with us that night.

So anyhow, we got back to camp around 0030 that night/morning, found out the Old Goat hammered an elk as well. We stayed up for about an hour or so, retelling the stories and getting a little food in us and turned in around 0200 that morning.

The next mornin/late morning (HAHAHAHA) Jake and I rode to the highway to get service, let folks know Jake took a bull and Bill hammered his elk as well and turned around and headed back to the trail head to go pack some elk. Well, we got up into our hunting area and then recon'ed a better way to get up on the hillside. We slowly hunted back up in there thinking we didn't spook the elk out of there when we shot and they were long gone before we got there the night before that maybe they'd be back out. We took a little stand about 100 yards away from Jake's carcass under a big tree and settled in for awhile. Our plan was to sit till last shooting was about on us, then move over to the where the meat was, load up our packs and move off the mountain.

Well, we sat for awhile, glassing, watching, etc. Well, I said lets hunt across the meadow and glass some of the spots we can't see. Well, about 30 steps towards Jakes elk, I thought I see an elk, nope, just my brain. I take another 3 steps looking up a big long finger off the meadow and sure as can be, it's an elk. I immediately drop my pack and get my rifle over it. Jake said it's a bull, CHECK, it's 390 yards, CHECK.... I dial my scope for the drop........ CHECK and now I can't see the elk cause some pre historic danged tree limb is all over him. I was worried about the distance of my bullet schwacking the limb.

[img]https://hosting.photobucket.co...920&height=1080&fit=bounds[/img]

You can see the meadow and the darned tree blocking my view. We keep sneaking closer to where Jakes elk is...

Finally I get far enough out of the tree blocking me. He ranges again, still 390. I plaster the reticle on the shoulder and press the shot. I was using my old P64 30-06 with the 212 ELD and the SS 3x9... Anyhow, Jake says he reared up at the shot and started running for the timber. Then I saw him run outta the timber and start somesaulting and flopped right in the middle of the meadow.

We moved on up once he was still and checked him out.

[img]https://hosting.photobucket.co...920&height=1080&fit=bounds[/img]

[img]https://hosting.photobucket.co...920&height=1080&fit=bounds[/img]


We took some pictures, took a drink of water, and started taking care of him.


Again, I am nutty about wanting to see what the bullet did so as we skinned up we started looking for the bullet path. That 212 hammered him on the near side leg, made soup out of the chest, broke the far side leg and was in the hide/meat.

[img]https://hosting.photobucket.co...920&height=1080&fit=bounds[/img]

I found the core and the jacket right next to one another. I was pretty happy from all directions. I love when stuff happens without drama, two bulls and two recovered bullets.

We skinned him and carried the meat to the woods again. Both of carrying two front's off the mountain along with the backstraps. I am not sure if we weren't skipping off the hill that night.

I think we made it back to camp around 2230 that night and had some chow and a beer, along with some more story time. Around midnight, we stoked the stove and crawled into the bags.

I have a few more pictures from packing, but it was too cool to shoot my bull within spitting distance of my brothers bull out of basically the same meadow the following day!

Great story,, Great hunt. I could not draw up the photos though..

Yeah Photobucket SUX and is a rip-off outfit in my opinion. Wish the pics were with some other service.

yea I can't see the photos

Great story. Sounds like it was an awesome adventure. Unfortunately can’t see the pics.

Very well done!

Great report - congrats

Thank you for fixing the pictures Whttail_in_MT! Appreciate it buddy!

Thank you for the comments fellas and sorry about the PB nonsense but I’m so deep into PB I’d hate to lose what I’ve got there so I keep struggling through it.

My little brother built the rifle this past year. We put an Echols Legend, 1-8 2 contour Krieger, 3.6 mag box, M70 Classic SS action and PT&G BM along with some other stuff together. Well, Kevin Weaver put it together for him. Another great rifle from him. We got it so late in the game we used Kevin’s test load which shot under a 1” 10 shot group with 200 grain Accubonds and H4350 at 2968 and ran with it.

Ran it out to distance to make sure the NF 2.5x10 MilR worked and the dope was good and went hunting. Luckily we’d spent all summer shooting so switching over to this sweetheart for my brother was even easier.

Way to go Scott!

Great story and amazing pictures! Congratulations on a great hunt!

The funny part is that P64 30-06 I used ALMOST became a 35 Whelen. I couldn't make it shoot ANYTHING really well and I was getting pretty sour at it. I loved how it handled and the recoil feels like a pellet rifle compared to some others I use. I did the Tubb's Final Finish bullets down it as a last resort, half heartedly firing it pretty quick and not really giving it alot of time to cool...

Well, once I was done, it shot with some cheap WW 150 factory loads pretty darned well... Then the 212 ELD X with Staball 6.5 shot some amazing groups out to 500 and further. I kept it in the rig next to my other elk rifles (7 Mashburn and 300 RUM).... Every once in awhile I'd pull it out, dial and drill the steel with it and kept thinking, man this thing might be okay..

I carried my Mashburn the first day of the hunt and the next day we were packing meat and being the 06 was my lightest rifle I decided to take it... The rest is history I guess. I kinda think of it as a big 6.5 CM actually.. It's almost the same trajectory as my 6.5 with the 147's with a bunch more bullet weight that holds onto speed pretty danged well. I'd shot the ELD into jugs and trusted it at the speeds the 06 would put it out hold up and I'll be darned if it didn't crunch leg bones and really soup the front end like I have seen with other much faster cartridges...

When my brother saw the damage he stated "jeeze Scotty, what do I need a 300 for"? :lol:

I told him, "hold the leg and quit distracting me with facts"... :mrgreen:

Nice going Scotty! Congrats to all of you guys.

Congrats Scotty!

Thanks fellas!