Conference vmsnet::hunting$note:hunting

    i also would like to mention that I didn't think that Yellowstone
    National Park was not as badly damaged as I thought the media had
    said it was. I fully expected to see all black with patches of green
    but found it to be the opposite. Supposedly they had also said that
    they could only save the lodge at Old Faithful and all surrounding
    buildings were burned, but I found out that only one small garage
    had been burned to the ground. They did find a small black bear
    cub in the park that had run thgrough the fires and had burned his
    feet to the bone and had to be put to sleep. I had also been told
    that they lost 20,000 head of wildlife in the fires. That might
    be high but with the amount of wildlife that there is out there
    it could also be very true.

    This seems the appropriate place for this.
    
    re. fire in yellowstone
    
    1.  No grizzly bears were killed.
    
    2.  Four out of 2500 bison were killed.
    
    3.  250 out of 35,000 were killed.
    
    4.  50,000 to 1,000,000 lodgepole pine seeds are now germinating
        in each acre of lodgepole pine forest burned.
    
    5.  Pinegrass, fireweed, sticky geranium and other wildflowers are
        already coming back.
    
    6.  Park Service estimates there will be 30% more vegetation in
        the park.
    
    7.  The grizzlies may go into hibernation without enough fat, but
        long term prospects are good because berry bushes and other
        vegetation eaten by bears will grow in greater profusion.

    250 what? were killed??
    
    		Wayne
    
    ps. Just curious, Those figures were nice to seeas I was hoping
    the local wildlife would do ok!

    re. 243.2
    
    I screwed up!
    
    I meant 250 elk out of 35,000 were killed.
    
    I'm surprised so many.  Elk are extremely sensitive to their
    environment and for them to be caught by a fire is rare.  Of course
    that fire was wild and fast moving, so I suppose it could happen.

    I had heard that while I was out there, the grizzly's were feeding
    on the carcasses of elk and deer that did not make it through the
    fires. But there is also a big controversy about putting in wolves
    in the park but that is now put on the back burner. The officials
    that were involved in the wolf reintroduction had said that this
    might have been the perfect time to reintroduce them since there
    would have been plenty of food for them.
    							Bret

The title to this conference should be "WYOMING IS FUN!".

I have taken three trips to Wyoming, and am anxiously waiting for my 
fourth trip this October.

The first trip, 6 years ago, was with two of my brothers to the Bighorn 
Mountains.  We camp in the National Forests out there.  This means that 
you simply go to where you want to go and set up camp.  You do not have 
to stay in a campground.  We chose a campsite at about 7800 feet.  It 
turned out to be a mistake for hunting, but it was a fantastic place to 
camp.  The mistake for hunting was that we were after mule deer.  As we 
were setting up camp on the first day, it started to snow.  The snow 
caused the deer to move down the mountain.  We found bedding areas where 
hundreds of deer had bedded and then moved down.  Fortunately, my one 
brother scored on a beautiful, atypical 3 pointer (western count).  It 
was the largest mule deer I have seen.  Despite the lack of success for 
my other brother and I, we had a great time.  I saw a herd of seven elk, 
and had I had an elk license, I could have scored on the bull.  They 
were running up the mountain through a meadow as I was coming out of the 
forest.  I had them within range for about ten seconds.  It was 
beautiful.  We all saw elk, and we had a black bear walk about 100 
yards away from our camp.

The second trip was with all six brothers and I.  Six of us hunted with 
rifles and one hunted with a camera.  This trip was to the Black Hills 
in Wyoming.  We were within sight (30 miles) of the Devil's Tower of 
"Close Encounters of the Third Kind" fame.  Each of the six of us 
carrying rifles bagged a deer.  Two whitetails and the rest muleys.  My 
youngest brother bagged his first buck, a 5 point (western count) muley. 
Though not as grand as the Bighorn Mountains, the Black Hills offer 
excellent hunting and the mix of whitetail and mule deer.

The third trip was back to the Black Hills.  A couple of the brothers 
liked the success and wanted a repeat.  The cameraman stayed home, and 
the six of us brought back 4 muleys.  We talked with the games wardens 
out there and they indicated that our success ration is much higher than 
the locals.  Of course, the games wardens believed the way we were 
hunting was a better way to hunt.  We basically used our midwestern 
whitetail hunting techniques of still hunting through the forests, and 
we were successful.  In Wyoming it is legal to carry a loaded firearm in 
your vehicle.  Therefore, some locals climb into a 4WD and cruise the 
country watching for deer.  We even saw some pickups rigged with a 
six-foot high chair in the bed.  A `hunter' would be strapped into the 
chair, allowing a rapid shot at any deer spotted.  I'm glad to see that 
the foot method works better.

This year it is back to the Bighorns.  All six brothers and I are going 
again.  My oldest brother is bringing one of his sons, so there will be 
eight of us.  I am going to have a hard time concentrating on work until 
October 13 when we will be leaving.  We plan on camping at the bottom of 
the mountain this time, along the Tongue River.  It takes a 4WD to get 
in there, but it nearly guarantees that almost no other people will be 
seen for the week of hunting.

If you are wondering about the cost of something like this, you may be 
surprised.  The deer license (good for whitetail or mule deer) costs 
about $100.  For our last trip out there two years ago, expenses came to 
about $150 per person in addition to the cost of the license.  This was 
$250 total for a week of camping and hunting in the mountains.  Most of 
our expense is in gasoline and meals going and coming.  I have two 
brothers in Michigan, three in Wisconsin and one here in Minnesota with 
me.  It takes about 20 hours to drive to the Bighorns from Minneapolis.  
We pack our food in and don't come out for a week.  It is great.

Wyoming license applications must be in during the first part of the 
year.  They have multiple game management areas with varying seasons and 
harvest limits for each.  Drawing for licenses is done in the June-July 
timeframe.  A maximum of six hunters can apply as a party.  (We have 
seven this year.  We applied as a group of six and one brother took a 
chance and applied on his own.)  You select up to three areas that you 
would want to hunt.  The party, as a group, either gets or does not get 
the area selected.  We got the Bighorns this year, and I plan on 
enjoying it.

I have to admit, my expenses are going to be a little higher this year.  
The past years I have hunted with a .257 Roberts.  It is a great little 
gun.  Almost no recoil, and the bullet comes screaming out of the 
barrel.  The only problem is that the largest bullet is 117 grains.  I 
do not use Nosler partition bullets.  My last deer I shot at about 30 
yards and hit it in the front shoulder blade.  I smashed the bone all to 
pieces, but the bullet stopped right there; it did not penetrate.  
Therefore, I decided that even though the .257 has taken many deer in 
its life, I upgraded to a 30/06 this year and use a 150gr to 180gr 
bullet.  That's right, I just HAD to buy that new rifle.  That's an 
additional $400 dollars, but I plan on amortizing it over several years.

    
    
    re. .6
    
    Tim,
    
    Did you have any trouble getting a deer permit?  I have been
    told that non-residents have to draw for a deer permit and
    that the chances for success are not extremely high.  Care
    to enlighten me?
    
    Jerry

    Never had a problem with getting a permit.  You have to get your
    application in early in the year to get the area you want to hunt,
    though.  Wyoming has a great number of wlidlife management areas,
    and you put a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd choice on your application.  4 years
    ago we applied for the Bighorn mountains as our first choice, but
    ended up with the Black Hills, which was our second choice.  We
    also apply as a party (max of 6).  This tends to limit your chances,
    because either all get it or none get it.
    
    This year we applied again for the Bighorns and got it.  There is
    a party of six plus one who applied on his own.  Again, the critical
    thing is getting the applications in early.  One of my brothers
    filled them all out, signed our names, and sent them in as soon
    as he got the application.  After you have applied one year, Wyoming
    automatically sends yuo the application the next year, making it
    real easy to get things turned around in short order.  They WANT
    you to hunt out there.
    
    I have heard a rumor that the license is going to increase in cost
    next year from the current $100 to $200-250 next year.  I do not
    have any facts to back it up.  I hope it doesn't, because it currently
    is such a bargain for non-resident hunters.  Again, a deer permit
    there allows for either whitetail or mule deer.  Some areas have
    both.
    
    Tim

Well, I just got back from a *glorious* Wyoming deer hunt.  I could spend
hours writing about it, but I will just try to give you the highlights.

I live in a suburb of Minneapolis.  I left about 9:00am Friday morning.  Met
my brothers coming in from Michigan and Wisconsin at about 11:30am in a town
down the road a bit from me.  We drove until 3:00am Saturday morning to reach
our destination in the Bighorn Mountains outside of Sheridan, Wyoming.  We
pulled the sleeping bags out of the trucks, threw them on the ground, and slept
until about 7:00am.  We then headed for our final destination.  We did not want
to try to get there in the dark.

Our final destination was down along the Tongue River, about 5 miles of 2 track
from the paved road.  It took us 4 hours to travel that 5 miles.  We had to
move rocks and logs in many places to create a path we could get across.  My
one brother has a Ford 3/4 ton pickup with 16" tires on it.  It has a super-low
creeper gear that almost allows him to climb trees with it.  But we had to make
sure he could get through with the trailer he was pulling.  (BTW, there were
seven of us, 5 brothers, a nephew, and myself.  One brother was unable to make
it this year.)

We finally got down to the bottomlands and set up camp.  Once camp was set up,
we kinda killed time.  Openning was the next day.  Some went out scouting, some
looked at the trout in the river, some played lazy.

Sunday morning it was starting to snow.  I decided to walk the mountains to see
what I could see.  I didn't care if I got a deer or not.  It was beautiful out
there.  I only saw a few deer, but did see bear and elk tracks.  My nephew shot
a forkhorn just after I left camp.

I was tired Monday morning.  You have to realize that Minneapolis is less than
1000 ft above sea level.  We were camped at nearly 7500.  I was panting
unpacking my gear on Saturday.  The ridge we camped next to was about 8500 ft
up there.  My brothers decided to make a drive through the sage brush, as they
had seen lots of deer in the sage on Monday.  My brother, Eric, and I decided to
climb to the top of the ridge and watch for deer moving up out of the sage.  It
took us two hours to climb that ridge, we were that tired.  We started seeing
deer all over.  Both of us have been out here before, so we had decided to not
shoot anything less than a 3x3.  We meandered around the high ridge for a while
and then decided to move to another ridge.

The fog was rolling in and out, just to make life a little more difficult.  We
were actually above the clouds; it was like looking out the window of an
airplane at the tops of the clouds.  The wind was moving them in and out and
over everything up there.  As we were walking along the other ridge, I saw some
cow elk.  I ran one way and Eric ran another to see if we could get a better
view.  I ended up with a beautiful view of a 5x5 elk bull.  He was only about
125 yards away.  He apparently did not know we were there; I was laying on a
rock with my scope on him, just watching him.  He was in sight for well over a
minute before he decided to meander around the edge of the hillside.  Eric and
I got together again and were discussing how neat a sighting that was when
three more elk, 2 cows and a calf, almost ran us over as they tried to get to
the others we had just seen.  I was ready to call it a hunt right then, even
though I had not even pulled a trigger.

Eric and I decided to walk the side slope back to camp.  (Minimum 45 degree
pitch on the side slope.)  We kicked out at least 4 deer in the 3x3 or better
range on the way back to camp.  They are still out there if someone else wants
to try for them.  We got back to camp and found out that my other brothers had
seen almost no deer.  Eric had seen over 50, me about 40.

Eric and I went out the next day, but again started passing up anything with
less than 3 points on a side.  We heard a good deal of shooting coming from the
direction of where my other brothers were hunting.  We continued our sightseeing
as it was starting to snow again.  We saw deer again, but nothing worth shooting
at.  When we got back to camp, we found 3 more deer in camp.

We would have liked to have stayed another day or two, but commitments had to
be kept.  We decided 4 deer for the 7 of us was plenty.  Besides, the sights
we had seen were more than enough.  I had a 5x5 elk and at least a 4x4 mule deer
in my sights.  I got to go hunting and not clean any game.

What a fantastic hunting trip.  This was my 4th to Wyoming.  I am already 
planning my 5th, in 1991.