national grass lands gillette

[PAGOAT]

I'm looking at the grass lands north of Gillette as a possible place to go look for deer if I don't find anything above Buffalo or the lake de smet. Maybe even just for a change of scenery for the day while deer hunting the first week or so of October. The regulations are showing antlered mule deer or any white tail deer, which I'd be happy with a good whitetail buck. I'm sure we will run over a day and check it out but I was wondering if anyone else has hunted it and how you made out or what you saw ? Thank you.

Goat

 

[Addicting]

I hunted a long time ago and we saw a lot of young mule deer. The area isn't really set up for whitetails. It's a lot of small hills/buttes with some steep washouts that the bigger bucks like to shade in. We saw more antelope the first few scouting days than deer. On the opener guys with quads surrounded the antelope herds shot the lead doe then proceeded to lay wast to the rest of the herd. The dry creek banks have large popular trees in them and those will be lined with camps with animals hanging as those are the only real trees besides some scrub pine on top of the buttes. Make sure you know where the water holes are and have extra gas. There is a lot of country there without a fuel station and that red clay when wet will drastically change the weight of your truck and fuel consumption. If I were to head there again I would read up on the rules for shooting coyotes, they were everywhere and it would of been a fun way to spend a few days after we tagged out.

 

[PAGOAT]

I kind of thought there would be a lot of people, hearing this though I may stay over by de smet. The fuel is an issue at times but I do like the 36 gallon gas tank to deal with that. The ATV seems to be an issue all over with people not staying on roads, I noticed this a lot in portions of C last year.

Goat

 

[Addicting]

We didn't have the tools like GPS or Onxmaps back then. It was a compass, paper maps, and terrain association to figure out where you were. With these new tools it could be pretty good, there is a lot of country there. Most of them stuck to the roads, just know that you need to make Lope first then Deer. We all tagged out in 7 days but they were all smaller except one nice 4x4 with eye guards.

 

[Gut Shot]

Lots of people on the grasslands. There are some OK bucks in there but they get a lot of pressure and know where the boundaries are.

 

[Alabama]

I would check out the BLM north of the grasslands off of rocky point road. There are some decent mulies there, mostly on private but if you were patient you could catch them on public. The deer hunters I saw last year were mostly concentrating on the grasslands. You might run into a lot of antelope hunters that early in the season though. If you waited until the last week of the season I think it would be a much better experience, and the bucks would be getting a lot more interested in the ladies.

Finding a whitetail would be tough, in 4 days I only saw 2 whitetail does. Addicting is spot on about the coyotes. I probably saw 3-8 per day. Calling would be fun and I'm sure very successful.

 

[Steiny]

Hunted there many times, lots of deer in there but lots of hunters too. We killed deer every time, but never anything to brag about, biggest stuff was +/-18" wide 4x4 & 5x5, most were forkys and 3x3's, 1.5 & 2.5 year old bucks. It's a good place to enjoy a nice camp out and get some venison. Also lots of BLM land around the area within a short drive if you have the maps.

After first couple years, we started going the last few days of season vs first few to avoid the crowds. Always stumbled on to gut piles and mess left behind by others but there were far less hunters at that point, so a much better experience.

Saw a few whitetail but only ever saw one killed in our camp, a small 4x4. We also saw a few real nice muley bucks, but nobody ever connected on one. They were real spooky and rarely seen.

 

[Keeptrying]

Never go to eastern Wyoming without a plan for killing coyotes.

We did, and still regret it.

 

[PAGOAT]

Thank you guys, I'll go check it out a day. Yes there was a lot of coyotes around last year I noticed.