Elk Harvest Good on the Piney Front, Slow in Rest of County
Also - deer hunting better this year.
by Rob Shaul

Elk hunting in most of Sublette County is fairly slow so far this season - except for the Wyoming Range, reports Pinedale Game & Fish Biologist Doug McWhirter. Based on field checks by biologists and wardens throughout the county, Mr. McWhirter says the hunting seems to be slow up in the Hoback and Granite Creek areas, and on the Pinedale side of the Wind Rivers.

The one bright spot seems to be the Wyoming Range front, he reports. At three check stations over three days this past weekend, Mr. McWhirter estimates the G&F checked over 150 elk. Doug says he personally checked "quite a few beautiful bulls" this weekend.

Big Piney Game Warden Brad Hovinga agrees, saying that the elk harvest in the Wyoming Range is going "really well." Brad rode 20 miles on horseback opening day in the North Piney area and reports seeing 45 hunters and a dozen dead elk.

He reports that the number of hunters and hunting pressure is way up - the busiest he's seen in his five years working out of Big Piney. He's also seen nice animals come out of the hills, including one Horse Creek bull elk which he's sure will score a minimum 350 on Boone and Crockett.

With one or two day's exception, this fall's warm, dry weather hasn't helped the harvest. The season for most general elk tags in the county ends October 31.

Both Doug and Brad say deer hunting was better this year than it's been in several of the past years. Hunters brought a lot of buck deer out of the Hoback and Wyoming Range says Mr. McWhirter. Most hunters were "encouraged and at least satisfied by the number of deer they were seeing," he says.

Mr. Hovinga saw hunters take several three- to four-year-old deer with racks in the 25" - 27" range. He personally checked three big deer with racks in the 30" range and says he heard of several more. "It was a good deer season," he concludes. Deer season in the county ended October 10.