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First western archery/mule deer hunt

Trslabaugh

Member
Joined
Aug 5, 2018
Messages
96
Location
Central Oklahoma
Hey guys and gals,


I've been researching my tail off trying to decide to which region to go with to do an archery hunt in WY. This will be my first out of state archery hunt and first mule deer hunt. I have 3 Regions that I have been toying with, One being good access and two being poor access. Coming from Oklahoma, the "poor access" units still have more public land than we have! I've picked regions with fair success rates to know I should be able to get on a buck. One of the my questions is... how do you guys tell how busy an archery season is going to be? I ask because a couple public land areas I hunt in OK are ghost towns during archery. Granted, we don't have out of state hunters in the number that WY does. One of the regions, Eastman's lists it as poor for hunting pressure but I'm sure that's due to rifle hunting and being close to a populated area. So do I go off entire season data and say pressure with more public or less pressure with less public? Narrowing it down to "the one" unit to go to is driving me nuts. I do have 2 PP but from what Go Hunt says...I don't need any to draw these regions.

I'm not after a trophy, just a fair buck that represents the area I am hunting. In Oklahoma while hunting, I probably haven't laid eyes on anything bigger than a 130" whitetail so it shouldn't take a lot to get me fired up.
 
I bowhunted region B last year for the first 5 days of the archery season and saw 2 other guys in one truck the whole time I was there. It was incredibly hot and I was a total newbie but I only saw one buck per day until my last day when I saw 9 together and luckily one little guy made it onto public and into my truck. If I hadn't had onX I wouldn't have gotten that one as the fence was 1/4 mile off from the property line according to OnX.
 
onX and GPS have been wrong before...Just sayin.Be careful.
Then send a few more arrows,It shows you care! Lol! 😎
 
Yes that has been brought up many times. I would venture to say fences are wrong WAY more than onX chip is wrong. When the property line on the GPS runs east and west and the fence goes NW to SE, because it was the easiest place to put it then I'll hop that fence every day. If it runs parallel to where it should be and is 100 or 200 yards off then I'd give the Rancher the benefit of the doubt. My point to the OP is just pick a unit and go, cuz for us NR even the low access units have more places to hunt than home and I saw virtually no one else out there. Best wishes!
 
I wouldn't give 100 to 200 yards on a fence that runs parallel unless I had something else like a paper map that told me the GPS was wrong. Many fences were first built over 50 years ago. Back then property lines were often not given high priority on where the fence was built. Ten to twenty yards would be more reasonable if you are unsure.
 
Thanks for the advice, guys! @Muskeez, you're right. The amount of lands available to hunt are a bit overwhelming to me. I feel like we have adequate amounts here during archery season and its a lot easier because I can't run all over the country side looking for that perfect spot! I'm forced to live with what I got.
 
I see a archery deer hunter every couple of seasons on mountain, way more archery elk hunters. As far as using success odds, they are fictional and dont not accurately reflect anything other than G&F check point locations in WY. The hunter question made me realize i just dont know ANYONE who hunts deer with a bow here. Most archers that i know hunt lope then elk then roll into rifle deer
 
We get a survey every year and fill it out accurately. The numbers come from surveys as well as check stations.
Right about the archery deer hunters though, not near as popular as archery elk hunting, by locals anyway.
 
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