Buffalo Hunting

Buffalo Hunting
September 1st - December 14th, 2008
National Forest and National Elk Refuge in Teton County

Shad and his Buffalo

Believe me, the entire Buffalo hunting experience was not near as easy as this picture makes it look. It all started about this time of year when a couple of teachers that work for my school told me how easy it was to get their to buffalo last year. Opening day in September they found a bunch right on the forest and got a couple. Done deal. Not that easy.

After talking to them, I did some research. The Wyoming Game and Fish really wanted to reduce the size of the heard that wintered on the Elk Refuge and surrounding area. It was up to 1200. Last year they opened the National Elk Refuge up to hunting Buffalo. As a result the harvest for some 250 plus cow buffalo licenses issued was over 90%. Looked like a slam dunk to me. I put in for a cow, figuring my chances would be better, since most folks want a big bull. Though, I'd been told, at the time it didn't really register how much harder cows were to hunt. Turns out the cows rarely leave the big herds. The big herds rarely venture off Grand Teton National Park (off limits to hunting buffalo). If you ever see a couple of Buffalo standing around (even five or six) all by themselves- 95% of the time, they are Bulls. The bulls are more apt to stray good distances from the herd and venture into areas open to hunting. I had several opportunities to harvest bulls.

Hunting started off sometime in September. Many of the buffalo areas were open to elk, so my dad went up with me and we drove around in the rain looking for elk and Buffalo. We saw a lot of Buffalo. My dad was under the impression that the Teton National Park Elk area that he hunted several years ago was open for Buffalo too. When he learned it wasn't, and saw the bits and pieces of national forest they would have to wander onto his opinion on the whole thing changed. Throughout the season I took a few other folks up buffalo hunting with me. After driving and hiking around for day, they all got the same smirk on their face. I'm sure all of them were thinking, "Good luck with this. Glad it's not me who forked out $400.00 for the tag." Most of them never went out again with me. None of them really hunted the refuge with me.

Eventually the big herds of Buffalo do move onto the Elk Refuge, and when they do, hunters have a chance at cows. The problem was, last year we had an early winter with lots of snow. That drove the herds onto the Refuge early. This year was the opposite. Not much moved onto the Refuge until the day I got one. In fact, the Game and Fish extended the season three week this year because their hadn't been many folks getting buffalo. I think they'll get there 90% harvest now. All it takes is some weather.

The follow is chronological series of photos that I took during my hunt. Because I was by myself, I figured I'd better takes lots of photos- mostly because I'm sure there will be many folks wandering how the heck I managed. Enjoy!

This seemed to be as close as I could come to cows crossing the boundary for quite a few trips.

Barney and Matt got out with me (too hunt elk too) this particular weekend, near the end of Oct/ beginning of Nov. Barney help me spot this bunch (there are more than the photo shows) from atop Shadow Mountain. By the time we got down to where they were and figured out how to access them, they had moved 300 yards or more away from the boundary. Got some good exercise in!

Saw lots of these. Always after an area or season closed though. I ran into this bunch up Spread Creek while I was looking for some Buffalo my father-in-law helped me spot the week prior. We actually found a herd of Buffalo up there with cows. There was one close enough to the boundary that I probably could have taken it. It was late in the day though, and he had to get back to Casper. That was tough to swallow.

When there were no critters to look at, there were always these things (The Tetons). Beautiful country to hunt in! Good for skiing too. In fact, by this time my Buffalo hunting was beginning to cut into my ski season. I was starting to sweat it. Even took time off from work to hunt. Up until then, I was just going up on weekends and holidays. After they extended the season, I figured I'd just wait and go hunting over Christmas Break. An opportunity/ urge came over me though to try again over the weekend. I couldn't resist.

My Buffalo hunting rig.

Actually the National Elk Refuge is perfect for bikes. They won't let you drive on most of their roads until you get a critter down, then you can drive to retrieve them. Since many of the critters seem to like the side of the refuge farthest from the roads- an mountain bike can save you gobs of time getting there. They allow you to cover more terrain at a little quicker pace. Every morning I'd get up at 4am, and would try to be in the saddle riding to my spot between 5 and 6am. All of my 24 hour racing gear (powerful headlamp) came in pretty handy for this. Couldn't help but smile a little as I whizzed past people that had to have started hiking almost an hour before I even reached the parking lot. Even other hunters on bikes were amazed at how fast I could ride. Guess that's what a summer racing bikes will do to a person. Ha! Didn't realize I was training for Buffalo hunting.

Reached a good spot to look at things as the sun came up. Hitched my pony to a tree and hiked up to an over look.

It was cold out, but not as cold as it would get.

As the sun (or what little of it shined through the blizzard) came up, this is what I saw. Whole heck of a lot of elk! My bike was leaning against the cottonwood tree below (center of the photo). It was amazing to watch these. There must of have been a thousand of them. The line stretched for over a mile at one point.

A little later I rode down to river bottom. The snow was deep done there. Harder to ride it in, though I got it done.

It was worth the effort too. About an hour later, while hiking I got onto a bunch of buffalo, and there were cows. The bigger herd blew up and ran, I ducked into a draw and put a sneak on smaller bunch. After a half hour of sneaking on hands and knees, I was within a 150 yards of them. Three of them were cows. I took aim. Kaabooom! Nothing. I couldn't believe it. A few minutes later they ran for it. I missed. Don't know how, but I did. I followed them for a quite a while- no blood trail, no wounded ones- I just plain missed. Man that sucked!

A little later as I was pedaling back, two of the Bulls that were in the group I shot at ran over th hill towards more hunters. They chased them back over the gap and down to the river bottom again. If only they were cows, I would have had another shot. Bugger!

Two Bulls making a run to the Gros Ventre River.

After this deal, I went back to my truck and made my way over to road that goes to Kelly along the Gros Ventre. I had my eye on a huge herd all day that looked like they were getting closer and closer to the river (getting ready to cross into the Refuge). I reached the road about sundown, and watched as hundreds of Buffalo make there away across the river into the Refuge. Things were looking good for hunting the Refuge tomorrow. Everyone and their dog knew it too. There must have been 30 other Buffalo hunters parked, watching them cross over. Arge. Guess that meant another wee early morning ride in below zero weather. I knew just where to go though. I figured those Buffalo would run right to where I found the bunch I shot at, or they'd stay in the river bottom. Either way, I figured I'd head to river bottom, because if they weren't there already- that's where they would run once folks started shooting. My strategy paid off...

Me and my buff.

Around 8:30am after hearing quite a few shots over the hill, a herd of about a hundred came running right at me. Kind of intimidating really. I was glad it was in the trees. I picked out the first cow that I could (they were on the run) and shot. The first shot stopped her, but didn't put her down. It took many more. I think most of my shots missed. I think my rifle is pretty screwed up. I sighted it in this year- but it's old and spend most of the season vibrating on an ATV. Anyway- it eventually got the job done, with exactly one round left to spare. When it was over, I shot ten times. Incredible. I was getting ready to fasten a bayonet. Ha!

This was the scene at 9:00am.

Time to go to work...

The first thing I did was tied up a leg to a tree and pull a lot to the skin out of the way.

I went ahead and skinned a good portion of the one side out before I started gutting her.

The gutting begins. This was hard, messy work.

It must have taken me the better part of an hour to get this rolled out of her.

Finally, the guts were out. Did I mention it was a balmy zero degrees out (with a wind chill of - 15 degrees). Yea, that's steam rising from the cavity.

With the gutting completed, went to work on getting the skin off (I wanted to save the hide). I did one side then rolled her over and did the other side.

With the skinning done, the next step was to quarter her up into pieces I could handle.

A surgeon's tools- or something. And folks wonder why my pack is so heavy! I'll be glad not to have to pack this stuff around any longer. It came in handy on this day though.

Once I got it all quartered up (actually there were eight pieces) I piled it all up on the hide and covered it up with the hide. It was about noon or so. I figured the job took me over three hours. Time to go get the truck. My bike was still more than a mile away, and the truck was about a three mile bike ride away. I reached the truck about 1:15pm or so. After getting the truck as close as I could (about a 1/2 mile or more), seems like I started back to my buffalo with sled in tow, around 2:00pm.

First I drug out the hind quarters. Fairly flat dragging with snow- not too bad. It was pretty brushy in some areas though.

My second or third load in tow. All together it took me four round trips.

This is what the drag looked like from the kill site. Click on the photo to enlarge it and see the truck.

Coming back for my final trip around 4pm. All that was left was the hide and hide. In between trips I draped the hide over some down fall and salted it all up pretty good.

I spread the hide out and salted it again before folding it up. I hope to have it tanned. It's not a huge buffalo, but likely the only one I'll get in my life time.

Looking back as I make the final drag.

Whew! What a day! Had everything loaded up by 5pm. Got home about 9:30pm. Took the next day off from work. I'm soar as hell today. Not near as bad as a 100 mile MTB race though!

Not many places left in the world where you can still hunt North American Buffalo. Gotta love Wyoming, where the Buffalo still roam.

Here's a map of the National Elk Refuge (click to enlarge and read). The blue line indicates my bike route, though the second day I only road to the top of North Gap. The "Ps" are parking areas. You are allowed to drive beyond the parking areas until you get something, then you can go back and get your vehicle and use the "retrieval" roads. Hunting the refuge will give you a workout, that's for sure!

Back at home with Seamus. Tally sat on an Elk head at his age. He'll have to settle for Buff!

The whole crew.

Missed them a bunch over the past few months worth of weekends. Looking forwards to a bit more time at home now. Guess we'll see if that happens. Powder skiing season is already underway- I've got a lot to get caught up on. Ha!