Wyoming Bighorn Mt. Moose hunt

[finnman]

We just returned from this hunt last night. The drive was okay, even if it is a hair over 1,000 miles one way!
We had two moose tags, I drew and a friend also drew! We were stoked to say the least! So we narrowed it down to a hunt date and looked for antelope tags in the near units, so we were on our way with 5 doe tags and 2 moose tags!
We had a fairly small unit to cover, no wilderness access due to being non-residents, but the moose are mainly meadow dwelling creatures and that was exactly what we found! We tried hiking into road closure areas and looking for moose but it seemed all we found was sign and no moose, so we reverted to glassing easy to access meadows and creek drainages early and late in the day.
While doing this we saw some very nice bull elk, muledeer, whitetail, black bear, turkey, grouse, owls, beaver, bobcat, bison, antelope, squirrels and other critters, quite an assortment!
On day four I found a nice moose in a main drainage right at dark, I took the shot at 225 yards with the 350 Rem Mag and hit it in the hump, dropping it, however, moose recover from that hit and all of a sudden its up and cruising through the meadow headed for home! I hit it again broadside through the lungs and it didn't even flinch! It then turned and headed for the dark timber where all I had was a texas heart shot and Houston here we come! After that we slowly crossed the creek and meadow to the last location the moose was seen, we stood in the timber looking for it and nothing was seen! We stood for a minute just silently casting our eyes through the dark forest for a glimpse, then we heard the death kick and slow moan just 10 yards to the left! Moose down! This was day four, on the morning of day 6, my buddy Jim, 72 years young found a nice moose in the meadow on the creek we were camped on, made the 160 yard shot and we were done!
The hunting was challenging, just simply far different than the typical deer and elk hunting I do and at 8,000 feet in elevation you suck wind quite easy! I also did not sleep well as I am a very slow breather while asleep, so I was having problems with getting enough oxygen at night, often waking up at 3am and fighting to get another 2 hours of sleep.
All in all, great hunt with great friends, tons of wildlife, and just breath taking beautiful mountains and streams! I look forward to a return hunt in the future!
Will post pics soon.

[Stein]

Wow, hopefully you have plenty of freezer space for that haul?

Did you do any scouting prior or just show up and hunt?  I'm looking into WY next year for myself and my daughter as MT is pretty much pricing us out of the game.  WY seems to have much more favorable prices, especially for kids.

[boneaddict]

AWESOME!   I am hoping for a bull tag sometime in the next year or two.   I am hoping the wolves leave me some.   

[finnman]

Wow, hopefully you have plenty of freezer space for that haul?

Did you do any scouting prior or just show up and hunt?  I'm looking into WY next year for myself and my daughter as MT is pretty much pricing us out of the game.  WY seems to have much more favorable prices, especially for kids.

I did all my scouting on the phone and internet. I had looked over Google Earth extensively, locating all of the hidden meadows and main meadows that we could make use of in the unit. We hunted the south half of the unit and were very happy we did.

Bone:
We saw a few bruiser bulls up there. I quit buying the points when they went to $75 a pop! This cow hunt was a great time and far less stressful then chasing antlers and the meat will not be beat!

[WSU]

How many points does it take to draw one of these?

[boneaddict]

Truly DIY.  I love it!

[boneaddict]

How many points does it take to draw one of these?

I think on average its less than 6.   You can tell for sure by going to Wyoming fish and game, hunting, drawing odds 2014, moose, non res.   They will tell you what you need for each unit.

[finnman]

PM SENT WSU

[Bigshooter]

Nice job finnman.

[X-Force]

Cool adventure. did you fill the doe tags too?

[elkoholic1]

congrats thanks for sharing love me some moose meat and looks like you guys got a haul of it!!   

[finnman]

We ended up with two doe tags filled in unit 115. Not the best area, rather hard to find public land to hunt that is not busy with people in the 115-6. We hunted there just one day and gave up, so instead I got a one day fish license and fished a few streams around there and caught a few brook trout.

[finnman]

Started the butchering process tonight, the meat has sat and aged well, it's soft and cuts easy, cut up cubes for canning, burger meat and steaks.

[cem3434]

Are the cow tags discounted versus the cost of a bull tag?  This seems like it would be a fun hunt to go on. 

[finnman]

Sigh......no, they are full price.