Wyoming General Mistakes

[Elktaco]

My advice would be just go to unit 21. Tons of places to shoot elk a 5 minute walk from the truck.

 

[mooretitan]

Mid Day for the most part has been a good time for us. I can usually glass up bedded animals and make a plan or slowly push the timber. For some reason that just did not work this trip. We mostly saw elk in the mornings or evenings right at light which did not give us much time to get on them. The timing just never worked out on this trip.
We will be putting in for cow tags and hope to get a better feel for some units. I still have 9 points so in a couple years we might use my points and do general again. My dad will be 63 so some of the rougher areas are starting to not be an option with how we hunt.
We took a look at 21/13 and found elk there this summer but the blow down is terrible and roads everywhere. I asked my son if this was an area he wanted to hunt and he said no. He liked the mountains in the 80's. Not saying I wont take a harder look at 21. There are tons of elk in there but also tons of hunters and tons of roads. I just wasn't really impressed with how the land laid out.

We will be back at it again

 

[Strikezone]

Well I just got back from Wyoming General Elk and wanted to share a few things that will hopefully help others who are planning a trip in the future. It looks like Wyoming General will be a 4-6 year tag moving forward. That's a lot of time to invest and you can't just go back the following year and correct the mistakes you made.

1. If possible try and clear your mind before you go. Make sure everything for work is taken care of. Make sure all family obligations have been taken care of. It's amazing that sometimes you just can't get your mind to break away. My family has been battling health problems the last couple of years and no matter how hard I tried I could not complete detach and just focus on the hunt and I am sure it affected the over trip to a degree. So when possible get as much stuff done so your mind is not worrying about things.

2. Get in better shape. I worked pretty hard but still could have been in better shape. I would say that I was probably an 8/10 as far as conditioning and when I go back it will be a 10/10. Add weight training and pack workouts in. When you move freely with 45lbs on your back you are in elk shape. Where we hunted we covered 2000-3000 ft of elevation change and between 6-8 miles a day. Most of that elevation was within the first two miles if not the first mile. The mountains of Wyoming are steep and getting to where the elk are takes effort. Make sure you are in shape to do it. It's not just about being able to kill and animal. You also have to pack it out. Get those legs in the best shape possible.

3. Line up a packer before your trip even if you don't use them, just having them will help. There were a few times that we found elk but getting to them and then packing them out was not going to be possible. The last day of the hunt we spotted some elk over a mile away according to OnX and getting on them would have probably been more like 2-3 miles. Being the last day it was to far. If we had a packer that we could have called we could have made a play on them. Elk are big you need to figure out how you are going to pack them out which will limit where you can hunt. I wish I had this lined up. It was probably one of the biggest mistakes I made.

4. Really decide on what type of hunt you and your group are looking for. Wyoming is full of elk and you can pick an area that fits your type of hunting. I did all the research and made lots of phone call and decided on one of the 80's unit based on success rate, bull ratio, ect... But what I did not take in account was this area did not allow the type of hunting our group was looking for. My dad and son both had tags and probably would have enjoyed and area which allowed a morning hunt (5-6 hours) and then back to camp (1-2 hours) and then get out for an evening hunt. I chose an area that really did not allow this. So we hunted pretty much dark to dark for 5 days which took a little of camp life out of the trip. It also pushed my dad and son really hard physical. They did great but I think would have enjoyed the trip more if I would have focus on a different area.

5. You don't have to focus on the unit with the most public land. I think I let this be to big of a factor. Yes it was nice knowing that everything was huntable in our unit but I think looking back I passed over a lot of units that would have been better suited for our group because of private property. With today's maps it should be pretty easy to hunt units with private property. Yes there might be a few times you can't hunt elk but you will run into the same problems on public. Sometimes elk are just in spots you can't get to them. So don't overlook units with private land. Heck it might work out better

6. Hunting pressure is going to be high opening weekend almost anywhere. We saw 15 guys opening morning that were in the area we hunted. 10 of them had horses. If you don't like pressure dont hunt opening weekend. I thought by choosing a unit with very little off roads areas that we could out hunt the pressure. It doesn't work like that in Wyoming. Almost everyone has horses and will go anywhere they want. They are not only at trailheads. I was hoping that by walking two hours straight up off trail we would avoid hunters. It did not work that way. Horses can and will go anywhere and you cant keep up with guys on horses. After the first 4 days the pressure was gone. We should have picked the following week to hunt. We were in elk everyday and would have had the place basically to ourselves.
I think if I were to do it again I would have picked a unit with more road access. I would rather guys drive the road and out walk them than deal with horse pressure.

7. If you can rent horses. They can open up so much more area and save your legs and time. There were a few times having horses would have gotten us into more elk. With the distance we had to cover on foot we just ran out of time sometimes. Horses would have helped or hunting a unit with less horse pressure would have been better.

8. Bring a few water pills to filter water. I always bring enough water but sometimes others run out and it would have been nice to just hand them a couple pills instead of my water. I ended up going dry once and it would have been really nice to just drop a couple pills into the water and a few fresh drink.

9. Use walking sticks. I had a pair but decided to leave them at camp each day. Man how much better I would have felt using them. I am not sure why I don't hunt with them more often but being in big country you should have them. Start using them back home so its just part of your hunting routine. You won't be sorry that you used them. I wish I had.

10. Push Elk or wait until you can see. We ran into this a few times. Being new the area I did not want to push elk so a few times we left closer to light which work and we found elk but it put us out of some prime times in areas a little farther in. We had a hard time with judging how long long it would take us to get to point A to B. We covered 2000ft of elevation one morning in roughly 1.2 miles. I would say most people hunting the 80's unit should give themselves two hours of travel if you are going to get from the roads to ridge tops. This means leaving around 5 in the morning. Yes there are other places to hunt but where we hunted the road to the elk areas(which seemed to be the tops) was a 2-3 hour hike in and 2000ft of elevation. But if you leave that early you push elk that a closer to the roads. We never really got to those far to reach elk with enough good hunting time.

11. Game Wardens and Bio will be helpful to a degree but they are telling everyone the same info. If possible getting local info or info from past hunters is probably more important. The problem is everyone is very tight lipped when it comes to giving out information. You can go over maps until you are blue in the face and do tons of research but there is nothing like being there during a season and seeing it. You start to understand what pressure will look like, what animals do when faced with pressure, how long it takes to get to A and B. There is so much just being there during the season that you learn. The problem is a Wyoming General tag will be 4-6 to get. I wish we could go back next year and apply the knowledge we learned. I am sure we would be in a lot better shape to be successful. It's not Wyoming's fault it's just the way hunting is becoming. It makes it harder being the out of state guy. So if you can get local information from people that hunted it before.

12. Find something to do mid day. We stayed on the mountain and I am not really much of a midday nap guy so time passed slow between 1-3. I ended up bringing a deck of cards which help. If I were to do it again I might download some music, podcast, video. I enjoy just sitting and relaxing but something else to pass the time would have been helpful

Anyways hopefully this helps others who plan on making it out of state on a big trip. We were into elk everyday and even passed a few shots early on. We just never really got into bulls. Wish we could repeat next year but wont happen. I think if I would have applied what I learned the trip overall would have been more of a success

Thanks and good luck

Very helpful