I just got back from a wonderful hunt with Muddy Draw Outdoors on the Bell Otte Ranch in Wyoming. I selected them through Cabela's WTA after many years of preference points. The hunt was October 16th-20th. I took my elk on the 18th after glassing and chasing many, many elk. We had a great stalk the first night on a herd on the side of a rocky knob (I think the elk in this area are part goat - they like the granite rocks and slabs), but decided to pass. By Tuesday we were seeing 200-500 elk a day. They were starting to herd up post rut and were coming on the property to escape public hunting pressure.

We found two big herds Wednesday morning in the valley meadows and let them go up into the mountain ridges undisturbed. My guide and his assistant found them midday and we set-up on them at about 350 yards. They were on the dark side of a draw bedded in the snow and shade. They were about 100 yards below a ridge line. The draw led down into the valley. We located 5 bulls through the trees and watched 3 of them for 2.5 hours until they decided to get up. The first picture below is our view to the bedding area. We estimated 80-100 elk. The bull I shot is circled in yellow and was the last elk to stand up. He was a 373 yards when I shot him with my Mauser M03 300 WBY with 180 gr TTSX. The second photo is on top of the ridge above the elk post-hunt looking back to our shooting position. We were under a large pine tree with a large granite outcropping to our backs. The next two pics are of the elk. He had a very large body! We quartered and bagged him there and were able to drive the Canam to with 10 feet of him! It was a hard pack out The only regret I have is not hunting archery in September (in WY you get drawn and then pick weapon and date). They took a 360" bull during archery with many larger ones seen. Time to start building points again!

Awesome elk! Congratulations!

Congrats on your first elk. Nice bull! I'm just finishing up processing the last quarter of my first Idaho cow today. Been in a cooler for 9 days, aging. Had some for lunch yesterday. Great!

Congratulations - nice bull.
It was my fourth hunt before I took a shot at an elk, but it paid off with a nice 6x6.
Enjoy the great meat!

Congratulations, good looking bull.

Nice bull! Hope it tastes as good as it looks.

Congrats on connecting.
Nice bull. Big bodied suckers for sure.
You never know how big til you get one down.
Then the work starts.
Only once out of over a hundred I've been involved with was easy getting out. Rolled that one down the mtn and it hit the truck! Six guys there to help load it whole.

George

Congratulations on your first elk! Nice bull too. Elk, especially in September and first part of October when they're rutting, are a special animal to hunt.

Geoergeld, you need to find easier places to elk hunt. Our last two, we drove the truck up to one and loaded him and drove to within 500 yards of the other, which I could easily have driven to if I wanted to bust through sagebrush. Good thing too, because they were both big heavy bulls.

Good Hunt!
I hunted Utah and got a very nice bull. It took from 6:30pm till before 1:00 AM to get back to camp with horns,cape and meat 3 of us. New Mexico DIY, a friend and I both killed bulls and packed out on frames quartered one and boned out the other
and made 7 trips at a little over a mile each not counting trips out to get the frames. I like to hear about these easy retrievals. As an aside, my friend is 56 and I'm 65.
I have a love/hate relationship with Elk!

Nice bull!
You might need to go help someone pack out to keep karma on your side.

quote:

Originally posted by TREE 'EM:
Nice bull!
You might need to go help someone pack out to keep karma on your side.

Longest pack-out has been 2+ miles on a Kodiak bear, but the guide and packer had the load. And it was downhill.

Congrats! Great first elk!

Great job!

I have max points for deer and elk. I need to start applying.

Big Congrat's!

Congrats on a fine bull.

Nice bull. Congratulations!

Congrats, that surenuff a pretty good start.