Greenhead_Slayer
New member
I’ve always applied for a bull bison tag in Wyoming around the Jackson Hole area. As a non-resident, odds are dismal, at best, and with as expensive as the NR tag is, it almost makes more sense to go buy a reservation or Ted Turner ranch hunt. Free-range bison has been on the top of my bucket list for a while. Fed up with the low odds I applied for a cow tag this year and drew!
If you draw a bull tag you can hunt National Forest land and realistically harvest there, but the cows very rarely venture onto the National Forest, limiting a realistic chance of harvest to the National Elk Refuge. It is just as the name indicates, a national refuge, and has some unique regulations and requirements, but nothing that some basic planning can't account for. This unit is totally a migration hunt, which hits a little different when there are 7 days til the end of the season and a cow hasn’t stepped foot on the refuge yet, which is exactly what happened this year. Kind of a weird feeling knowing that you really don't have many other options other than a herd crossing onto the refuge. It really limits your options, and the low harvest rates for the cows the last few years are probably a good indicator of why your odds of drawing a cow tag are pretty decent. On a Saturday night, I finally got word a large herd had crossed the boundary into the refuge. Roughly 30 cows had been taken the next morning. I made the 4-hour drive up that afternoon to hunt Monday morning and found a small herd of yearlings. We got within a couple of hundred yards and looked them over and decided to look around to see if we could see any bigger cows. 2 other hunters harvested out of that herd. After about 6 miles on the horses we hadn’t seen another Buffalo, and the -10 windchill was less than enjoyable, so we backtracked and found the herd of yearlings. We got within 100 yards and noticed one that had some frozen blood on her, with what looked like should have been a fatal shot, but she wasn’t showing any signs of being wounded. We decided to take her, although she was fairly smaller than some of the others. I shot her twice with a 180-grain TTSX, but the first shot would have done it I think. We gutted her and called the retrieval outfitter to come to drag her about a mile to the truck. She still weighed 700 pounds after being gutted, which is absurd to me! The bison steaks have been exceptional table fare. Hopefully, a bull tag is still in the cards at some point.
If you draw a bull tag you can hunt National Forest land and realistically harvest there, but the cows very rarely venture onto the National Forest, limiting a realistic chance of harvest to the National Elk Refuge. It is just as the name indicates, a national refuge, and has some unique regulations and requirements, but nothing that some basic planning can't account for. This unit is totally a migration hunt, which hits a little different when there are 7 days til the end of the season and a cow hasn’t stepped foot on the refuge yet, which is exactly what happened this year. Kind of a weird feeling knowing that you really don't have many other options other than a herd crossing onto the refuge. It really limits your options, and the low harvest rates for the cows the last few years are probably a good indicator of why your odds of drawing a cow tag are pretty decent. On a Saturday night, I finally got word a large herd had crossed the boundary into the refuge. Roughly 30 cows had been taken the next morning. I made the 4-hour drive up that afternoon to hunt Monday morning and found a small herd of yearlings. We got within a couple of hundred yards and looked them over and decided to look around to see if we could see any bigger cows. 2 other hunters harvested out of that herd. After about 6 miles on the horses we hadn’t seen another Buffalo, and the -10 windchill was less than enjoyable, so we backtracked and found the herd of yearlings. We got within 100 yards and noticed one that had some frozen blood on her, with what looked like should have been a fatal shot, but she wasn’t showing any signs of being wounded. We decided to take her, although she was fairly smaller than some of the others. I shot her twice with a 180-grain TTSX, but the first shot would have done it I think. We gutted her and called the retrieval outfitter to come to drag her about a mile to the truck. She still weighed 700 pounds after being gutted, which is absurd to me! The bison steaks have been exceptional table fare. Hopefully, a bull tag is still in the cards at some point.
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