Hunted it last year second season, I would take a treestand and mainly hunt tanks and do some spot and stalk. I would say that there's very little rut activity early unless a freak cold front comes though. Last year the last 4-5 days of the second season were the best for rut activity.
I didn't draw Wyoming so your idea interests me,
I'm like you I couldn't let myself pay much for the 4% gain in odds that the outfitter pool would give you.
Welcome to the forums.
I took my son on a backpack hunt when he was 12 after a couple day he wanted to get back to where there was REAL FOOD I'll never forget that one. Good Luck
I have some ED3 bino's that need to be returned for warranty. One email sent to ZenRay a couple weeks ago remains unanswered, I guess I need to get back at it and spam them once a day.
+1 on the Silky Gomtaro Pro Sentei 300mm, used it on an elk this year in New Mexico and it worked even better than I expected. Very little effort to remove the skull cap as it's very sharp.
Used Paracord to wrap the handle part of the blade and cut down a plastic blade protector from another...