Southern Wyoming Cow

[Mcribs]

Hey crew -

I have a cow tag in Southern Wyoming. Runs through Dec. The state reports have good info on when to expect movement: they get bounced out of Utah and CO in late season. I’ll have the kids with me for part of the hunt and have a couple questions:


I’ve never hunted that kind of country, rolling/flat, and small canyons. Looks inhospitable to animals but obviously it’s not.

Do the cows stay mostly near water? When glassing are you looking into any shade/canyons/water where there’s cover or just cover as much area as possible and spotting them in the open? There’s a lot of roads through there so trying to get a good strategy going. I can pick high ground and glass, but trying to decide whether I should be highly mobile on roads and cover ground or find pockets and really look into cover.

Any strategy/PMs appreciated!

 

[wytx]

couple of thoughts sent your way via pm.

 

[TaperPin]

When glassing are you looking into any shade/canyons/water where there’s cover or just cover as much area as possible and spotting them in the open? There’s a lot of roads through there so trying to get a good strategy going. I can pick high ground and glass, but trying to decide whether I should be highly mobile on roads and cover ground or find pockets and really look into cover.

Elk are habitual and if moving in from other areas will be in roughly the same places every year - if you don’t know anyone with local knowledge of the exact area, my money in on using binoculars and spotting scopes to locate them - the only places they can be are fairly small. I’d ask everyone I came in contact with in Green River and Rock springs where the elk hang out - although the answer is pretty obvious if it’s where I’m thinking.

The sagebrush elk are easy to find out in the open, but are also easily hidden in fairly small draws - I’m guess they are run all around when the shooting starts - maybe they get out of the most traveled areas into the draws or open where it’s easy to see people coming. The area might also have a small population of year round elk. One year we set out to find a small herd of southern WY elk just for the fun of it and it took exactly 2 hours of glassing from jeep trails.

Opening morning, watch where the locals are driving their 4 wheelers and shooting from. Every high school kid in town has probably smoked an elk there, or been with someone who has.

 

[Mcribs]

Sweet, thanks for your input.