Waiting for Snow: 2007 Hunting Highlights

Hunting Highlights
Shoshone NF, Southern Wind River Range
October/ November, 2007

Wind River Peak, above Frye Lake Resevoir.

It'll be a while before conditions are ripe for skiing in the Winds. Though my hunting season isn't quite over, my hunting in the Southern Winds is wrapped up for this year. I figured I had time enough to put together a summary of sorts, I guess.

Started out with little Pine Grouse/ scouting expedition up Silas Canyon, the day before General Elk season opened. Saw some first thing too, also deer and lots of these tracks- always see alot of bear sign up Silas Canyon.

Silas Canyon

Bagged my limit on Grouse that day too- bonus!

Yummy!

Another look up Silas Canyon.

Not exactly thinking of hunting here. Ha! Skied a couple of these couloirs back in the spring of 2006. Hope they get some more snow this year. They've filled up some since this trip, but still have a ways to go.

Took a trip up Dickenson Park during general elk. All we saw up there was this owl. Actually, we'd seen where a bunch of elk were. They just weren't there that day. Oh well. That's how it goes. It was cool to see this owl.

Later that same day we poked around in some other country off the Rez, but up near Dickenson above the North Fork, lookin' for elk. No luck. Neat country though.

Towards the end of October, the weather got too nice to hunt. Though I hunted anyway, I did take part of a day off to help Tally masacre some squash.

"T" is for...

Tearing a great big hole in my pumpkin!! Ha!

Later on, I took a couple of after school runs up Fairfield Hill looking to fill my late season cow elk permit. Didn't see any elk, but one night I nearly got run over by three of these guys.

All in all that night, I saw six moose- four were bulls. He was one of the bigger ones, though two were near the same size. Pretty cool.

Saturday on the last weekend of my cow elk season, I finally jumped a small cow (calf). After four and half long, hard days of hunting and not seeing any elk- took me about two seconds to decide whether or not shoot this one.

Clobbered him in true 3oo H & H fashion.

Not exactly a trophy. Tasty though.

Actually, I was tromping through some timber when I jumped her. I had just spooked a couple of deer out before she jumped up. Didn't have much of a shot at her as she was running through the trees- but it worked. It wasn't as pretty as it looks. Turned out she'd been hit before- twice actually. Once in the foot and once in the hind quarter (infact the meat was bad in much of that quarter). Bugger! Oh well, probably for the best- she definitely wouldn't have made it through the winter with that wound. Now, at least she didn't go to waste.

One thing about it, she was an easy elk to pack out. Only a few hundred yard drag down hill to road where my four wheeler was. I've had tougher drags with deer.

Once loaded, it was a race to get back. Couldn't believe this mid-November weather. Felt like nearly 70 degrees out. Yikes!

Pretty slick way to load an elk in the back of your truck.

"Orse!" "No, Elk." "Orse?" "No, Elk."

"Ehk?" "Yes! Elk!"

"Ehk!"

Then the work began. Didn't take too long though, didn't exactly fill the freezer either. Guess I'm gonna have to get serious about a big white-tail deer to fill the rest of it (if they make such a thing). Ha!

Well, that' show it goes- six days, a few weekends spent in some awesome country, hiking your butt off, seeing all sorts of every kind of critter except what you want. If you're lucky, you see the kind you're looking for. If you're way lucky- you get it. Then you go to work. Pretty soon it's all over til' next year. Gotta love it!