Couple observations from western Wyoming

fullthrottle

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1-Way to many guys shooting at bucks further than they should be. I witnessed a number of hunters shooting long range 4-5-6 shot strings and either missing completely or wounding the deer most likely not to be recovered. Bombs away!
2-lots of hunters shooting at or shooting small bucks for the area. It appeared no matter how small if it had 4 points it was getting shot at. Somewhat surprising considering the effort it takes to get into some of that country.
3- tons of coyotes, and they have acquired a taste for deer. I have never seen deer particularly bucks as skittish around coyotes as I have in that country. Weird, during the summer scouting I witnessed on numerous occasions coyotes hunting deer. I realize this is nothing new, but in my experience mature bucks will keep there eye on a coyote, but these bucks were flat bolting on numerous occasions.
4- I love that country, but obviously the buck quantity/quality has slid from the devastating winter a couple years back. Hopefully Mother Nature is kind in the coming years and that region can make a quick recovery. I spent 19 sessions morning or evening looking for big bucks and did not see one that I believe was an honest 180. Of course they are around, and much better, but very few and far between.
 
Plus you have your resident outfitter teaching long range shooting. I spent a few days in H and it was sniping not hunting.
 
Couldn?t agree more, big deer don't stand much of a chance when you are shooting at them from so far away that there defense system doesn't come into play.
 
I would say more than half the deer we saw were still in velvet.

Looks like a poor antler development this year.

Long range hunting isn't what I would call hunting. Banging away at 1500 yards is the new sad reality.

The bow hunters have all the buck chase to death already.

Just my opinion.
 
I had a great summer glassing as always and also a great hunt. My son was able to take a beautiful buck I had scouted this year while I watched him put on a solo stalk on him from the spotting scope. I am still after my target buck, he seems to have figured out just when to go into hiding, but I have a few ideas...
 
All the reasons and a few more of why I don't hunt deer anymore, or anything else for that matter. I have 15 points in several states and some in others but am letting them all go bc I can't stand what hunting has become and the pressure that is put on Mule Deer.

Someday they won't be here anymore and everyone even hunters will wonder what happened.
 
LAST EDITED ON Sep-18-19 AT 09:23PM (MST)[p]Interesting observations. Much different than I experienced. I did see plenty of coyotes. Never did see another bow hunter chasing the deer to death. The only buck I saw running to death, was the one with my arrow in him. Chased some great bucks,, and killed my biggest western Wyoming buck to date. I saw just as many big bucks this year, as I did before the bad winter.
Maybe I'm just lucky
 
Huh, ya. Archery was an entirely different story. I saw no hunters, it was great, other than it was a hot SOB. Can you imagine the bucks that would be running around up there if guys couldn't pick them off at 500, let alone 1,000.
 
1) I agree.

2) In Wyoming it is 4 points and in Utah/Idaho it is 2 points. A deer is a deer. It is a general area with trophy potential.

3) Didn't notice a bunch of Coyotes, but there were some. One thing that was shocking was the lack of bears. The Quota was only 1 going up there and didn't see much sign.

4) One of the reason why it is good allow people to shoot the younger bucks, because some of them will die in winter.

Add

5) The Deer are Fat. Still lots of green feed up high.

6) Elk are everywhere. Saw way more elk than deer.

7) Sheep herders need to move their flock off of the mountain sooner. Could hear their dogs every night barking.
 
1) In a previous year, I watched a couple of dudes knock down some medium sized bucks at 800 yards, one shot no problem. Then on the same hunt, I watched a dude wound two different small bucks before finally getting his 2 year old 3X3 on his 3rd shot...he didn't believe me when I told him he had wounded two different bucks...he thought he was shooting at the same buck each time and each shot was under 200 yards!

Marksmanship, not distance is the issue, but I wonder how we can limit hunters blasting at long range when they have no marksmanship? Maybe a fixed power scope, like 5X or something or does that make things worse somehow? Maybe Wyoming should go to inline muzzleloaders with scopes in G&H?
 
Spent 4 days backpacked into H.
Saw around 35 bucks. None of them would touch 170. Tons of dinks. Loys of people around as usual .
 
LAST EDITED ON Sep-24-19 AT 10:04PM (MST)[p]I had 26 nights out, so an evening and morning glassing at each spot. I stopped counting bucks mid August at 58 and probably was in the low to mid one hundreds before the season opened. Obviously some of those were duplicates and some of my spots got revisited to check growth on the deer I was interested in.. I think I saw about 10 180 class deer and 2 190 class. Of course I wanted more and bigger deer, but I have to say I was expecting worse after last winter. I ended up taking a 6 or 7 year old 190 class and had an enjoyable summer looking around.
 

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