Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Wyoming 2022

This year we had a slightly different camp. The Old Goat I usually hunt and camp with didn’t draw a tag for our normal unit so I had to go it without the old man. As luck would have it my old Detachment One buddy was able to come out and hunt with me. Huge thank you to Hunts for Heroes and Fotis for lining up the tags for us. They do a helluva job for Vets. Anyhow, as luck would have it, my son was able to take two weeks of leave and my little brother also roger’ed up to go with us, even though neither drew a tag.

The boys and I left from the east coast to get camp set up and get some elk scouted.







The boys doing some amphib Ops to get into the hunt area.

We got up on the mountain as soon as we could and started trying to get some elk spotted up. The Colonel has never been elk hunting so I wanted to show him those awesome Rocky’s and what it looks like to do it yourself.







The evening my buddy was coming in we got onto a small herd Im pretty sure we could've put a stalk on, but we were nice guys and decided to put them to bed till Craig (the Colonel) was in camp.



The next morning found us all up on the mountain, with elk everywhere. It was awesome. Even a bit of bugling too. We waited till the elk were in the timber by 0900, then moved over to get within rifle range of them.

Good story so far. I'm in.

We set up with our backs against some old pines and started to glass. Well, I might have taken a snooze till 1500 or so..






The Colonel and I talked a bit to pass the time. We were Marines who served together a few times throughout our careers and know a lot of the same folks so it was great to catch up and tell fishing sorta war stories to the young lads. Who knows, they mighta slept through most of them!

Anyhow around 1600, the Colonel glassed up a bull coming outta the timber. I held him for a second to make sure we couldn’t get a two’fer then said fire when ready. The bull was at 325 yards by our RFs and he pounded him a few times before he gave up.

On the rifle side, one of our mutual friends found him a P64 30-06, topped it with a Trijicon with the Mildot reticle. Once he had the rifle in hand the only ammo he could get ahold of was 180 Remington CLRN’s.. He spent a few hours with Todd Hodnett zeroing and shooting dope out to 600.

Anyhow, back to the bull. Once he was down we ran/walked up to the beast.







To say I was walking on air was an understatement!

First bull, 325 yards, P64 M70, hunting with some of my favorite people on planet earth and some old Round Nosed Green Boxed Remingtons brought it all together.

Did a quick class on skinning and quartering.







Then started to load some packs.

We got the MR packs out and started dividing up our loads. Didn’t take much with 4 strong back, hard footed fellas.







We got the meat back to camp at dark, probably 2000-2100 and had a few drinks! It was cool enough that night we unbundled them from the packs and let them chill in the night air.

Next day we arranged them on a nice log over the creek, tarped them and let them start aging.



My old buddy hunted a few more days with us. Had a couple more close encounters with small bulls but like a dummy I resisted since I’d seen a dinger on the mountain.

Anyhow he headed out back to home and the boys and I hunted a few more days but the heat was keeping them in the timber till late, almost till legal shooting light so they were pretty tough to make a play on. Didn’t matter, we’d had a goal of getting Craig on an elk and got him an excellent public land bull.

We did muck around a bit and found some sheep herder carvings.





Picture of the ol Roundnoses that could!



Anyhow, it was a great hunt. Wished it was a little cooler but you just never know what you’ll run into in the mountains.





A couple pictures of him and I 6 years younger. I retired on Friday and he retired the following Monday. It was a helluva party that weekend.

And my boy who was just about to go into the service.



Anyhow, anytime you old vets get a chance to hunt with one another, go do it. If you aren’t a vet, take one with you. It’s almost comical to hear all the bones cracking and insane snoring at night in camp

Great report - Thanks for sharing and congrats on getting your bud a bull!

Great story and pics, thanks for sharing your adventure with us.

Excellent.

👍

First, thank you guys for your service. I'm glad you guys had a good hunt. Those old round noses work. What part of Wyoming were you in?

Good deal.

The closest town was Afton to our unit. Bridger NF.

Thanks fellas. Can't say what a nice hunt it was. A little suffering with a pack always makes folks smile back at camp.

Hell yeah!

Great hunt, congrats on the Bull. Thanks for taking the time to post the story and pic's.

I really enjoyed reading about the hunt with your great pictures. Thanks for taking the time to share them!

Great story and memories to last forever.

I’ll throw a shameless plug in here for Hunts for Heroes and the Combat Veterans Hunting programs Our tags were donated by housewives, non hunters, and other family that aren’t hunters. The resident tags can either be donated to the organization for whomever the vet that wants to hunt or in a vets name for transfer. Just something to think about if you or your family ever want to donate.

As a guy that did 13 deployments in a little over 20 years in the MC there isn’t many places in the world that make me happier than being with other Vets and like minded folks and hunting and guns, while not very cool to our dipshit society today is what a lot of us really enjoy while not able to hunt [bleep] who threatened our nation.

I think programs like this are more helpful than Wounded Warriors and other groups where your dollar donated barely puts a quarter towards helping a veteran.

Off my box.. carry on.

Excellent hunt and story!