LopeHunter
Well-known member
Some background on how this hunt came to be for me.
I hunt to get away from people. I do like people. I just prefer to see lots and lots of minimally pressured animals and not many orange hats and vests when I hunt.
This shapes my application strategy out West where tend to apply for hard to draw deer tags with under 10% draw odds yet plenty of public land to hunt and high harvest rates of mature animals. My WY 1st Choice deer fits my ideal tag though with 3 points for 2018 the reality is that I can only draw that tag in the random bucket and there is not a random tag awarded to a non-resident some years in both the Special and Regular draw so you have to guess and cross your fingers you are in a live bucket then can worry about the 1 in 200 odds of that bucket. Hey, 1 in 200 beats 0 in 200.
I like to deer hunt and like northern WY a lot and that is where my 1st Choice deer hunt is located. I looked into Plan B options for my 2nd Choice in the northern quadrant. Those 2nd Choice options all have a wart or two. Region X became my choice and I drew. The wart is there are a lot of tags and not much public land in the GMUs of X that allow the early November buck deer hunt.
A resident can simply go buy this deer tag so you never quite know how many total tags will be in play but was over 1000 this year.
I researched into Walk In Areas (WIAs) and spoke with some prior hunters. Can be a crap shoot when show up to hunt a particular public parcel or WIA. Might have the place to yourself or might be crowded. You figure it out as daylight appears on the horizon. That is a nightmare for me and have successfully hunted this type of situation though was not much fun for me. Pressured animals. If it's brown, it's down approach. Human conflict. Out of state license plates (that would be me) are sometimes flash points.
I appreciate better hunters than me that will get it done in Region X on public this week. I opted to track down a private parcel to hunt. Not the preferred Hunt Talk strategy. Was my strategy for the 2nd Choice hunt.
Started hunting Saturday evening around Powell, WY, which was the 3rd day of the 10 day season. The land parcel is around 5000 acres. Is surrounded on 3 sides by WIAs. Saw plenty of mule deer does but only very small bucks. A winter kill a few years ago is still impacting things. Buck to doe ratio during my hunt was less than 1 to 10.
Day 2 was more of the same. Seeing lots of mule deer. These deer obviously had not been pressured. They were doing mule deer things with not much high anxiety. I am not much on score but the largest buck I saw the first two days was perhaps 80". I assume these bucks were in their 2nd or 3rd summer.
Today was Day 3 and this morning I bumped a nice whitetail buck at the faintest of first light which then began chasing two does back and forth in a field. I prefer hunting mule deer so left the rifle on safety. Saw several more smaller mule deer bucks and dozens of does as hiked to a different field. The mule deer were still moving around at 11 am which is 2 hours beyond when they bedded yesterday. Perhaps the rut is getting closer. 5 more days in the season.
Not much activity by mule deer bucks which I could say was rutty. A couple of bucks were sniffing low to the ground around does but just puppy-dogging along rather than up close and personal.
Had been quite windy during this afternoon with some sleet and rain. This seemed to keep the deer in the beds longer today. Or maybe they bedded longer today due to them bedding later this morning.
This evening I was watching a small 4x4 (perhaps the deepest fork was 4") with 6 does as they walked from a bedding area towards where I was up on a steep bluff. Was about an hour prior to sunset then you can hunt for 30 minutes after. The 4x4 was the largest mule deer buck on this hunt. Two of the young does (or maybe small bucks with no visible horns) were chasing each other and would rear up on back feet and box with their front hooves. Then it got interesting.
A larger 4x4 trotted up and began thrashing a large bush about 25 yards from the smaller buck. The larger buck dwarfed the other buck in body size and antlers. The small buck and the does stop walking my way. Dang it, losing light here in a bit. The bush thrashing went on for several minutes. A doe peeled off from the smaller buck's group and joined up with the bigger buck. More does peeled off then the smaller buck trotted up within a few feet of the other buck. They faced each other. Some staring and the larger buck did some more bush thrashing. Then he turned and slowly walked away towards the bedding area and the first doe followed. I was up on a bluff over 100 feet up from all this action and knew the pack out would be a pain in the dark trying to navigate that bluff. I also knew this would be a decent buck for me on this hunt. I took the shot steadied by the top of my hiking pole and the buck dropped. 145 yards. Beat the heck out of being in the office. I never saw another orange hat or vest. I slept in a real bed and had a warm shower every night. I have become that guy.
I hunt to get away from people. I do like people. I just prefer to see lots and lots of minimally pressured animals and not many orange hats and vests when I hunt.
This shapes my application strategy out West where tend to apply for hard to draw deer tags with under 10% draw odds yet plenty of public land to hunt and high harvest rates of mature animals. My WY 1st Choice deer fits my ideal tag though with 3 points for 2018 the reality is that I can only draw that tag in the random bucket and there is not a random tag awarded to a non-resident some years in both the Special and Regular draw so you have to guess and cross your fingers you are in a live bucket then can worry about the 1 in 200 odds of that bucket. Hey, 1 in 200 beats 0 in 200.
I like to deer hunt and like northern WY a lot and that is where my 1st Choice deer hunt is located. I looked into Plan B options for my 2nd Choice in the northern quadrant. Those 2nd Choice options all have a wart or two. Region X became my choice and I drew. The wart is there are a lot of tags and not much public land in the GMUs of X that allow the early November buck deer hunt.
A resident can simply go buy this deer tag so you never quite know how many total tags will be in play but was over 1000 this year.
I researched into Walk In Areas (WIAs) and spoke with some prior hunters. Can be a crap shoot when show up to hunt a particular public parcel or WIA. Might have the place to yourself or might be crowded. You figure it out as daylight appears on the horizon. That is a nightmare for me and have successfully hunted this type of situation though was not much fun for me. Pressured animals. If it's brown, it's down approach. Human conflict. Out of state license plates (that would be me) are sometimes flash points.
I appreciate better hunters than me that will get it done in Region X on public this week. I opted to track down a private parcel to hunt. Not the preferred Hunt Talk strategy. Was my strategy for the 2nd Choice hunt.
Started hunting Saturday evening around Powell, WY, which was the 3rd day of the 10 day season. The land parcel is around 5000 acres. Is surrounded on 3 sides by WIAs. Saw plenty of mule deer does but only very small bucks. A winter kill a few years ago is still impacting things. Buck to doe ratio during my hunt was less than 1 to 10.
Day 2 was more of the same. Seeing lots of mule deer. These deer obviously had not been pressured. They were doing mule deer things with not much high anxiety. I am not much on score but the largest buck I saw the first two days was perhaps 80". I assume these bucks were in their 2nd or 3rd summer.
Today was Day 3 and this morning I bumped a nice whitetail buck at the faintest of first light which then began chasing two does back and forth in a field. I prefer hunting mule deer so left the rifle on safety. Saw several more smaller mule deer bucks and dozens of does as hiked to a different field. The mule deer were still moving around at 11 am which is 2 hours beyond when they bedded yesterday. Perhaps the rut is getting closer. 5 more days in the season.
Not much activity by mule deer bucks which I could say was rutty. A couple of bucks were sniffing low to the ground around does but just puppy-dogging along rather than up close and personal.
Had been quite windy during this afternoon with some sleet and rain. This seemed to keep the deer in the beds longer today. Or maybe they bedded longer today due to them bedding later this morning.
This evening I was watching a small 4x4 (perhaps the deepest fork was 4") with 6 does as they walked from a bedding area towards where I was up on a steep bluff. Was about an hour prior to sunset then you can hunt for 30 minutes after. The 4x4 was the largest mule deer buck on this hunt. Two of the young does (or maybe small bucks with no visible horns) were chasing each other and would rear up on back feet and box with their front hooves. Then it got interesting.
A larger 4x4 trotted up and began thrashing a large bush about 25 yards from the smaller buck. The larger buck dwarfed the other buck in body size and antlers. The small buck and the does stop walking my way. Dang it, losing light here in a bit. The bush thrashing went on for several minutes. A doe peeled off from the smaller buck's group and joined up with the bigger buck. More does peeled off then the smaller buck trotted up within a few feet of the other buck. They faced each other. Some staring and the larger buck did some more bush thrashing. Then he turned and slowly walked away towards the bedding area and the first doe followed. I was up on a bluff over 100 feet up from all this action and knew the pack out would be a pain in the dark trying to navigate that bluff. I also knew this would be a decent buck for me on this hunt. I took the shot steadied by the top of my hiking pole and the buck dropped. 145 yards. Beat the heck out of being in the office. I never saw another orange hat or vest. I slept in a real bed and had a warm shower every night. I have become that guy.
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