Drew a tag for a 6yo bison bull for the Fort Peck Assiniboine Sioux Reservation for this year's harvest. The bachelor herds are much smaller than the family herds with fewer eyes looking for you, so we were able to get up a lot closer. Got within 70 yards of one herd of 4 but I couldn't see well through the grass we were taking cover in. Missed my shot and they skulked off.
Found another herd of 10 or so with larger bulls taking shelter in a valley. They'd actually moved closer when we stalked up to them over the hill and they spooked. They moved out of the valley, but were comfortable hanging out on the hill across from us instead of taking off. Put a few rounds of .30-06 180gr BTSP with 50 gr of IMR-4350 into a bull's lungs and then was able to get a heart shot. The 2yo's I've taken before went down a lot easier.
The last picture shows his herd in the distance and then another family herd on the horizon. The family herd gives you an idea of the distance we spot them from (and how far they can see us) before planning a stalk through the hills and valleys to get within shooting range.
For those who have not heard me talk about this program before, this is part of the Intertribal Buffalo Council. Fort Peck is the main conduit for getting genetically pure bison out of the Yellowstone reductions and then out to reservation lands. They've built a quarantine facility to be able to get cows without ranches complaining about brucellosis risk. They run two herds on 30,000 acres. One is their cultural herd for tribal members to harvest out of. They also do the occasional cull that goes to elders and into the schools. The other herd is the business herd that they sell harvests to non-members. The proceeds from that go toward maintaining both herds. They had 129 calves this year.
600lbs hanging weight. 23" horn span, tip to tip.
GoPro footage (forgot to turn it on until just before the heart shot):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSEJ5Ya7fK8
