Wyoming mule deer

[Mcseal2]

Definitely more than I want to tackle with hand tools! It would be great exercise, but not a great use of scouting time. Thanks again for the tip.

Even in KS a lot of the windbreaks around farm houses have been killed by bugs and disease. My grandparents place had a great windbreak that is half dead now. My sister and her husband got the house and are trying to figure out what to do.

I'm glad to be out of the tractor and headed to Wyoming for a few days tomorrow. If the dew isn't to heavy I should finish up baling alfalfa before we leave, if not Dad will finish it up after I take off. Haying is probably done for the year unless we get another cutting on the alfalfa and that's always a good feeling. I finished the prairie hay today. Have a couple slower weeks except for cutting silage before we start weaning calves.

 

[Brad Daniel]

Might be a wet weekend for you guys but you should still have plenty of fun.

 

[MN Public Hunter]

Thanks guys. I will pack the chainsaw, hadn't planned to do that until reading this. I have a 24" folding bowsaw and 19" axe I throw in the Ranger for an occasional tree but it sounds like this may be more than I want to tackle with hand tools. I'll throw in the Stihl full of gas and some bar and 2 stroke oil. I'll have a 5 gallon gas can anyway in case I need it in the Ranger, and I'll throw in another gallon I can mix the 2 stroke oil in if needed.

Thanks again for the info, you guys might have saved my trip.

I'll stick to the roads I am supposed to be on also, I have no desire to be the idiot who ruins things for everyone.

Yes, please don't be one of those guys. I will be in W as well and I would hate to video you being one of those guys...lol

 

[Mcseal2]

Yeah, I'd been watching the forecast and threw in the good raingear as well as the lightweight stuff. Thanks again for all your help.

 

[Mcseal2]

Yes, please don't be one of those guys. I will be in W as well and I would hate to video you being one of those guys...lol

I hate trespassers of any kind, I hope you catch lots of them

 

[MN Public Hunter]

I hate trespassers of any kind, I hope you catch lots of them

Well they are not trespassers, they are just the a-hole people who think they can ride all over BLM as they see fit. I'm hoping I don't run into much of it, but if I do, I will have a video of it.

 

[Brad Daniel]

Funny story..... We were having a discussion with a couple of game wardens about an atv being somewhere it shouldn't be. About that time, forest service employee showed up and joined in the discussion. Her preferred solution to the problem was just to shoot the engine on the atv. The game wardens had to quickly put the brakes on the discussion as they were running their personal tape recorders at the time. As soon as those were switched off, all agreed with the shooting idea but ended with just photos of the ORV sticker and a future ticket.

 

[Mcseal2]

That would definitely get the point across when they came back to see the bullet through the block.

I guess I figure they are still trespassers if they are using illegal transportation on public land. It's public, they have the right to be there, but not to trespass on everyone else's rights by riding their ATV off the legal trails.

Just stopped by to check this quick, I'm off the tractor and going to catch a quick shower and hit the road. Wyoming by morning! Not the same ring as Amarillo by morning, but I'm still excited to be heading out away from work for a few days.

Thanks for all the advice and I'll be back on next week if I don't check in before.

 

[Mcseal2]

Well we survived the scouting trip and all went well. We didn't need the chainsaw but definitely saw where we could have, the path was just already cleared everywhere we went. We spent some time in both the forest and lower part of 82. We saw more deer down below but they are much more visible in that terrain. We hit McCarty Canyon, Rendle Butte, Cow Butte, and lots of other areas plus several forest roads we walked off of and glassed into the drainages from. We never saw any giant bucks but did see a few mature bucks that we would be happy with. Most of the older ones we saw forked pretty high on the back and wouldn't score awesome but had good mass and are cool deer. Any good mature buck like that is plenty good enough for us, I just don't want to screw up on a stud of a 3yr old. I just don't like shooting young bucks with the potential to be really great, just my personal feeling. I am happier if I outsmart an older one, get lucky on an older one, or eat a tag trying for an older one. The scouting trip was definitely worth it, our map was not perfect and lots of roads aren't marked very often. It seemed like our OTBP paper map, Garmin vehicle GPS, and OnX app didn't always agree. I think we'd have wasted a lot of time if we hadn't learned some of the unit and laid some tracks and waypoints on the OnX app. I'm looking forward to season. It was great to get out of the heat and humidity of home and experience Wyoming weather and to be away for a few days.

 

[Brad Daniel]

Let me be the first to say that you may end up very disappointed in your Wyoming experience if you choose to hunt those areas you mentioned when you come back tag in hand and season open. You will see way more orange than deer.
Focus on open ridges and canyons away from roads. Hint....

 

[Mcseal2]

Thanks for the hint. I think you are right, those areas I mentioned have easy access and good looking country. They looked like places a meat hunter could fill a tag without a ton of effort. We found some other areas also we plan to start with. We might spend a day or two in 100 and wait until after the weekend to even start on 82 depending on what it looks like when we get there. Since it's our first trip we don't know exactly what to expect where for pressure just yet, the short season may make 100 worse in the areas we scouted. We spent a lot of time looking for areas like you mentioned and stumbled on a few we marked where we plan to start. They looked good also, are not easy to access by foot, and take a long rough time bouncing into on a 4 wheeler to reach also. There are so many 2 tracks it was hard to find a place you couldn't reach by one, but we found and marked a few. We spent a lot of time driving during the scouting trip just trying to find areas you had to walk into, there are a lot of 2 tracks that don't show up on my maps but that I'm sure hunters use to reach the areas that look to have less roads on the maps. The forest has tougher to reach country but also lots of places for an early October buck to remain invisible during daylight. The tall growth in the bottoms and down and dead trees make still hunting look really tough between visibility and noise so glassing from above looks like the best option to me. I'm sure I will learn lots more about hunting the unit this season, I know I have plenty of mistakes I'll make in the learning process between now and then.

 

[Mcseal2]

Looks like a fire is burning in 82 now

http://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/5023/

https://wgfd.wyo.gov/Regional-Offic...-Fire-will-affect-hunters-and-other-recreatio