COLUMN: If you want to hunt grizzlies, head north

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Bob Meinecke

 According to Mike Koshmrl of WyoFile, wolf hunters in 2024 spent an average of 450 days in the field per animal for each wolf they killed. Apparently these guys have some slow snow machines, eh? Sorry, bad joke, but you get the gist of it, no? 

Point of fact: Montana and Idaho, the only other states in the lower 48 that legalized wolf hunting, have adopted by legalizing,  methods like trapping, snaring, and thermal-imagery-assisted night hunting over baits . All of which are a big no-no in Wyoming’s wolf trophy game areas, for no other reason except that those methods work. In our state’s declared predator zone, which is most of the state, virtually anything goes including using motorized vehicles to run the critters to ground. After all, contrary to the popular belief out there among the “Friends of the Furries,” this predator control is not a big party thing. Unlike the popular press would have most of our more naive citizens to believe.  

Don’t believe me? Spend a season or two tending calving heifers on a range with wolves present and see if your attitude doesn’t change significantly or go on a calf count in the nurse pasture and count the half-eaten and the totally missing calf carcasses, not to mention the damaged mother cows minus their calves. Any attitude of sunshine and butterflies will soon disappear as you personally validate the carnage. But that’s just about what is as opposed to what’s touted as being so by the Disneyfiles. Butterflies land on Bambi’s nose too.

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Regardless, during that same hunting period, 2024, my sources indicate the average Wyoming deer hunter spent 12 days out in the boonies hunting for the deer of their choice. Back when wife Sandi and I were hunting critters for groceries, I think we may have averaged, not counting travel time or prep time, about three hours per deer. Unless we were looking for antlers, in which case it could have varied from hours to days and even weeks, depending on the quality and size of those sought-after antlers. Mostly, unless we were hunting buck-only tags, we didn’t get concerned about antlers. And, although we collected some super bucks over the years, we never entered any of them in any of the local “Big Bucks” contests. Seems to run counter to the reasons we hunted. 

The difference in our successes with big bucks lies in being able to know where to find those bucks. And, of course, always the eternal variable, the weather. What really leveled the field was having a knowledge born from being constantly immersed in the affairs of the bush people on a year-round basis. Knowing where the big boys are at various times during the season is a whale of a lot better than wondering where. As far as that goes, in that regard it doesn’t matter if you’re talking about hunting critters, furred or feathered, or fishing for your dinner – actual, factual knowledge of your quarry makes life a lot more pleasant and rewarding. 

Unlike deer hunters during that same time period mentioned above, elk hunters had it a bit leaner. According to Koshmrl, statewide, these nimrods drove, hiked and hunted for an average of 19 days per each elk. At that, only 53% punched tags that year. Listening to the scuttlebutt at the local pubs and coffee shops, that figure sounds about right. This probably includes those dudes who hired guides and hunted what amounts to virtual game farms in select locations who racked up a 100% kill ratio. But then again, including stats from actual hunters tends to drop that percentage down simply because there are some nimrods who spent an entire season, all 30 or 45 days or more, chasing elk through the wild high country and never punched their tags.

So some ranch styles of “buckboard hunting” shouldn’t count. Semi-domesticated ranch elk are fairly easy to hunt, or so I’m told. And an unfair inclusion into the regular hunting stats I might add if so and yes, apparently there are some pay-to-play ranches even here in Wyoming where the elk are so used to seeing people that you can dang near pet them. 

Or so I’ve  heard. While semi-tame elk still taste as good as wild elk and the mounts still look impressive hanging on the wall, that ain’t hunting to my mind. But the environmentally ignorant, the lazy and, unfortunately, the disabled appreciate the simplicity of the hunt. Like with Boone & Crockett records, only fair chase should count in those harvest stats, and fair chase, like pornography, can be fairly hard to define.

Then there are the bison hunts, which are basically hunts in name only. The hard part is finding a bison rancher whom you can afford. Or, drawing a tag to hunt a free-ranging buff usually on state or federal lands. In the old days, the hardest part of the hunt was finding the herd. And that didn’t matter whether you were a native Amerindian or a northern European import. Once located, the proper critter was selected and assassinated. No other word for it because it’s only an excercise in marksmanship. I’ve done it and so have several of my friends. 

They’ll tell you that the purpose is to secure meat the old-fashioned way, by killing it ourselves, and perhaps because ranch hunting is usually the only way one can legally hunt bison. Even with the proper authorities involved and the lucky hunter drawing a state tag, it still requires a working officer of some type to take you back to the bison, point out the proper critter and then validate your state-issued tag after consummation. Arduous in some cases, yes, but still not the epitome of a grand hunt. And yes, I’d do it again.

 As far as hunting our state’s larger carnivores, excluding mountain lions (for which I have no data available), the challenge seems to be magnified in proportion to the perceived status of the species. For example, Wyoming black bear hunters spent, in 2023, the last year of my data, 66 days in the field per each bruin rugged out. Success rates hovered around 14%. Bears, even when hunted over a legal bait site, are no dummies and are totally capable of turning the tables on overly arrogant hunters.

We’re referring to black bears here, not those hoary old he-bears called grizzlies. If you want to hunt them, the brown bears and the grizzlies, you need to either go to Alaska or Canada and engage a for-certain wilderness guide, not some unemployed cowboy picked up at a local bar.

Just saying.

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