Unit 041 (Medicine Lodge)

The Wyoming Game and Fish Commission names elk hunt area 41 "Medicine Lodge". It runs to about 666 square miles, entirely in Big Horn County. WGFD reports these elk as the Medicine Lodge herd unit, which also takes in elk hunt area 45. What WGFD publishes for the area is its boundary and its harvest; where the elk stand inside it is our reading of the ground, and the two are kept apart below.

The line: Bighorn River, Granite Pass and Bighorn Mountain

WGFD's 2026 Chapter 7 walks the line around elk hunt area 41 corner by corner. It starts where U.S. Highway 14 crosses the Bighorn River in the town of Greybull. On the way round it follows U.S. Highway 14, U.S.F.S. Road 344, U.S.F.S. Road 338 and B.L.M. Road 1111, and Bighorn River, Granite Pass, Bighorn Mountain and Medicine Lodge Creek. Read it as the legal edge of your license rather than as a hint about animals. The full text is in Section 9 of that chapter, with this year's season dates and license limitations in Section 2.

Not the same ground as the other hunt area 41s

WGFD numbers each species' hunt areas on its own grid, so the number 41 also belongs to its deer and moose hunt areas 41. Only the deer area shares a county with this one. A license is good only in the hunt area of its own species, so this page is about the elk area, and the cards at the foot of the page link the others.

Ground WGFD opens: Medicine Lodge and Spanish Point

WGFD administers the Medicine Lodge Wildlife Habitat Management Area (12,721 acres) inside or across the line. Its Access Yes program enrolls a Hunter Management Area here that list elk among their species — Spanish Point (5,489 acres). WGFD also lists one Walk-In Area covering about 2,709 acres open for elk: Big Horn 8. WGFD's 2026 regulations open Access Yes land only for the species and dates listed for each area, with each area's own rules on WGFD's site and no motorized travel unless WGFD says otherwise.

Wilderness inside the line: Cloud Peak Wilderness

About 8% of elk hunt area 41 lies in the Cloud Peak Wilderness. WGFD's 2026 regulations print the rule that matters there: no nonresident may hunt big game in a designated wilderness area unless accompanied by a licensed professional guide or a resident guide, with at least one guide for every two nonresident hunters. Inside the wilderness there are no roads, so every animal there comes out on your back or on a horse.

High ground inside the line: Iron Mountain, Antelope Butte and Crooked Creek Hill

Named high points inside elk hunt area 41 include Iron Mountain at 10,101 feet, Antelope Butte at 9,921 feet, Crooked Creek Hill at 9,620 feet, Spanish Point at 9,225 feet and Snowshoe Mountain at 9,215 feet. Several carry a public-land flag in our data, which makes them the first places to try for a view. Elk want timber to bed in and open ground to feed on, within a short walk of each other.

Wyoming Game and Fish's 2025 harvest survey estimates 869 hunters took 356 elk in elk hunt area 41 — 41% success, at about 17.9 days of hunting for every animal taken. Residents ran 38.9% and nonresidents 46.7% that year. Fewer than half the hunters here filled a license, which makes scouting time the difference between the two groups. The plan: find the feed, find the timber it backs onto, then watch the seam between them at the edges of the day.

License types WGFD reported in elk hunt area 41 for 2025

WGFD's 2025 survey breaks the elk harvest in elk hunt area 41 down by license type.

• Type 1 — 236 licenses in use, 36.4% success, 18.2 days per animal
• Type 2 — 72 licenses in use, 52.8% success, 12.2 days per animal
• Type 3 — 23 licenses in use, 87% success, 7.2 days per animal
• Type 4 — 305 licenses in use, 24.6% success, 28.2 days per animal
• Type 6 — 70 licenses in use, 57.1% success, 9.1 days per animal
• Type 7 — 156 licenses in use, 48.1% success, 9.9 days per animal

What each type allows — antlered, antlerless, archery-only, where it is valid — and this year's dates are set area by area in Section 2 of WGFD's 2026 Chapter 7, so read the line for the license you hold rather than assume it matches another area's.

Glassing from Bald Ridge, Medicine Lodge Big Game Winter Range and Horse Mountain

Take a position on one of Bald Ridge (8,782 ft), Medicine Lodge Big Game Winter Range (7,730 ft), Horse Mountain (7,270 ft) and Bush Butte (7,128 ft) and be on it before light. Work the morning with the air falling away from you, then accept that by mid-morning the wind has reversed and the plan has to change with it. September bugling works where you can get above a drainage and let the thermals carry sound downhill.

Hunting the Access Yes ground

Hunter Management Areas and Walk-In Areas are private land opened through WGFD's Access Yes program, and the 2026 regulations open each one only for the species and dates listed for it. Read the area's page on WGFD's site before you go — its rules, its dates and whether it needs anything more than your license. Anything else on that land, or any species not listed, needs the landowner's permission, so treat the Access Yes line as the edge of what you were given.

Reading the Medicine Lodge herd, not just the area

WGFD's harvest report also tabulates elk by herd unit, and elk hunt area 41 shares the Medicine Lodge herd unit with elk hunt area 45. The animals cross those lines without noticing them, so a neighbouring area in the same herd is the fairest comparison for a season here.

Getting past the roads: US 14 and Service Road 17

US 14, Service Road 17 and WY 31 are the named routes in our road inventory for the area. The country past the end of the gravel is the part worth your legs.

What we can't tell you

Some named ground above carries no land-status flag we trust, so check ownership on a current layer before you hunt it.