As most of you probably know, we�ve been selling bison hunts & harvests on the Flying D Ranch here outside Bozeman. Hunts for trophy bulls during the summer & fall, which are great if not exactly cheap. Harvests for the cows & yearlings (and starting last fall, a few big bulls) at pretty reasonable price. Those are a harvest or shoot, though, no question.
So, those have been immensely popular, but we know that a lot of folks aren�t taken with the �harvest� idea. So, just yesterday we may have hatched a heck of a plan, which we�re going to implement on kind of an experimental basis here later this month (and maybe beyond, if it works out).
We�ve got about 200 cow bison available. Going to release �em out on the main ranch, and let folks have at �em, unguided. This is going to be a bona-fide hunt, & maybe then some. Once they get shot at, they�re going to be wilder than March Hares, if not a good deal moreso�.
They won�t have the run of the full ranch (over 116,000 acres), but it�s still a heck of a big area. For those familiar with the D, it�ll be from the T in the Spanish Creek road clear over to Willow Swamp. A big chunk of the ranch. Price is $675, same as the harvests. We�re initially offering it January 17-20, and 24-27. You�ll have all four days to hunt, limited to 30 guys per time slot. If all 30 sell per time, they�re going to let about 50 cows go each time. In any case, there�ll be an adequate number of buffalo running around. Which brings to mind something else I�d better mention�. There are a handful of renegade big bulls running around in there that are resistant to being gathered. If you shoot one of those, it�s going to cost you $3500. It�s not that hard to tell the difference�. They�re twice the size of the cows. A ton, roughly, versus about 1000#.
You are totally on your own with this deal, including meat retrieval, so I�d recommend not shooting one in the middle of Willow Swamp or something ;-). I�d also not recommend being undergunned. Folks have been shooting �em five and six times with guns like �06�s in the harvest pasture (~200 acres) though, where the average shot is 75-100 yards. It�s somewhat unlikely you�ll be able to get that close out in the Big Open. It�s kind of rough country in places, though, and there�s a fair bit of timber, so who knows�. Just got a call; we�re restricting this to �high-powered rifles�. Still slightly undefined. I take that to mean 7mm Mag & up. 308�s & �06�s OK. No archery or black powder. Make that no muzzle-loaders. Sharps and equivalent certainly qualify as high-powered. We�re still kind of figuring this out as we go. If it works out, there�s potential for opening it to archery hunters next summer. THAT could be big fun�.
So if you can schedule on short notice, and are jonesing for a hunt, this is something to take a good look at. Reasonable price, gorgeous setting, & reasonably high odds of success. The consensus is that folks should be able to get one. Still, some people have been having enough trouble downing one in the harvest pasture, so we�ll see�.

Some photos;

Rimrock, You have email....Thanks

[ 01-10-2003, 00:32: Message edited by: CK ]

Sounds fun. I went up there last year and took a cow for the pot. I'd like to go on this, but will be deployed. What are the odds of this becoming a yearly thing? My father is headed up there on the 11th to take a cow for meat. I'd like to have a go at it next year.

Mac

These first two go-rounds are the test to see (a) what sort of interest this gets, and (b) how it works out from the ranch standpoint. It's gonna be interesting, no doubt....

I just put this up here & on another board, though, and am already getting pretty decent interest. Just finished a newspaper ad, & next is posters for the local sportings good stores. I've got a strong hunch this is going to go over like gangbusters, & yes, it will become a regular thing. And if demand exceeds supply, you economists know what that does to price, so here's your chance to get in on the ground floor ;-).