Video: We Helicoptered into Landlocked Public Ground for an Epic Elk Hunt — Then a Rancher Stole Our Bull

About this time last year, I cashed in my 13 nonresident preference points for Wyoming elk, applying for a unit with a reputation for big bulls but drum-tight hunting access.

That equation is getting more common around the West, and it can be hard to know if the limited access produces mature bulls or whether a reputation for big bulls limits the access. But this unit in Wyoming seemed like either, or both, could be true. Access to the best public ground in the unit—a long timbered ridge that gentles onto a grassy bench before falling away in deep canyons,—is entirely ringed with ranches that don’t allow hunting access, at least to people they don’t know or who aren’t paying customers.

I probably would have shied away from this area, attractive as it was, because of the limited access. I didn’t want to burn a dozen years of preference points on a season spent driving around looking for ground to hunt. Then David Faubion, a friend and fellow magazine editor who lives in Sheridan, told me about one solution to the access problem: fly into it.

Faubion had field-tested the idea of helicoptering into landlocked areas the year before, when he flew in and successfully hunted mule deer and elk on BLM land that’s closed off by surrounding ranches that outfit the unit. Through that adventure, he found a very good chopper pilot, Faubion said, and had learned Wyoming’s land-use and hunting laws that guide where we could land, camp, and hunt. 

The area we’d be targeting has intrigued me for years. Its interior is steep and rugged enough that no airplane can safely land, but there are dozens of spots where a helicopter might drop off a hunting party. The promise of adventure was appealing enough to get me to share my elk points with my buddy Ryan Chuckel and have a good chance to draw as a non-resident party.

The idea was audacious enough that we decided to bring along a photographer/videographer, Keagan Keddell, to document it. Our friend Ben Rogers, a diehard Wyoming hunter who was familiar with the area, threw in. Helicopters are pricey, but by splitting the costs among a couple chopper loads of us, we could pull it off for a fair bit less than an outfitted elk hunt.

That’s how the five of us came to meet at the designated landing zone last November and sort our gear for a week of backcountry hunting, while we waited on a helicopter pilot to drop out of the sky. 

The hunt exceeded my high expectations. The first night, we watched as a herd of maybe 20 post-rut bulls fed out of the timber at sunset. I wasn’t expecting to be done so early, but a big 6×6 stood above the rest and before long we were skinning and quartering that bull. 

The next day Ryan and David killed two dandy bulls bedded in the thin shade of a steep canyon. Unlike most elk hunts I’ve been on, this one was full of elk. The weather was spectacular. Tucked in a cove of ponderosas and sagebrush, our tents overlooked handsome country. Our party gelled, and we hunted and camped together like we’d been doing it for years. We ate well, thanks to the helicopter’s lift. And we witnessed the most remarkable display of Northern Lights any of us had seen.

But the hunt took a perverse turn when, on our third morning as we lounged around camp preparing to pack meat all day in the unseasonably hot mountain sun, we heard three shots nearby. We figured another elk hunter had gotten lucky, and we noted approvingly that it must be a hard hunter to have found a way to walk in. It turned out the shots were likely a cover story. Not an hour later, Ben and David spotted a man in blue jeans carrying an elk head and antlers off the mountain. It turned out to be one of the ranchers whose land we flew over. And it turned out he was absconding with the head of Ryan’s elk.

The confrontation with the man, captured on shaky phone video, is tense and cringy, but he finally admits that he took the head from the kill site to deter us from hunting the area.

The landowner’s intention may have been to make us question our decision or to reduce our enthusiasm for the place, but the opposite happened, maybe because the incident broke the surface tension around an issue that’s been building as more land is blocked up and as hunters are willing to work harder for access to premium places. While we weren’t especially glad the confrontation happened, we weren’t going to go away quietly, either.

On our return to paved roads and internet, as the story of our hunt and confrontation rippled outward, we got waves of feedback from hunting buddies, friends, and strangers. The video of the confrontation blew up on social media. Faubion and I were on Wyoming’s statewide media talking about our adventure. We covered the whole unexpected story on Outdoor Life’s channels. I heard from buddies who wanted to know specifically where we hunted, how much the chopper cost, and the pilot’s contact.

But we experienced some headwinds, too, from friends who think helicopters are so aggressive they upset the tenuous balance between landowners and sportsmen. I heard from outfitters who maintain the rules allowing the use of helicopters on public land are unclear but flexible enough to bring choppers under the same restrictions—and political influence—that regulate commercial pack stockers.

Legal fallout from the rancher’s actions has been mixed. Our group reported the incident to game wardens while we were in the field. We offered to be available in case wardens wanted to investigate, but we were more interested in documenting the incident rather than pursuing legal resolution. Our group was clear about what we observed—larceny of a trophy elk—but we also reckoned the rancher probably regretted the incident as much as we did. On our way out of the field, we visited the local game warden and gave him copies of our video. And we each provided a witness statement to the sheriff’s office.

We figured the judicial process turns slowly, and ours wasn’t a particularly high priority, but we were surprised to learn about a month ago that the Wyoming Game and Fish Department wasn’t pursuing charges. One of our party was told that wardens had investigated but concluded that, because we were tagged out, we weren’t hunting (or technically “hunters”) at the time of the incident, so hunter-harassment rules don’t apply.

But just this week we learned that the prosecuting attorney in the county where the incident occurred had charged the rancher with misdemeanor theft of property valued under $1,000. According to court documents, the rancher pled not guilty in a preliminary hearing. The case could go to trial this summer.

I’m still enjoying elk roasts and reliving our November hunt through photos and videos. As Wyoming’s big-game application window narrowed through January, I thought about reaching out to Faubion and Rogers and to the chopper pilot to plot another hunt. But I paused. I want to see how last year’s highly visible adventure colors the conversations around access, the risk and reward of taking extraordinary measures to reach special places, and whether there’s an access solution that might make helicopters unnecessary. So for this fall, at least, I’ll probably be walking into elk country.