Huntnful
Active Member
- Messages
- 219
Thank you Wyoming game and fish and Wyoming residents for allowing me to come as a non resident and have EASILY the best deer hunt I’ve ever had. It was such an enjoyable experience in truly awesome country. My good buddy and I drew tags together. We made 2 separate scouting trips
from CA. One in mid July and one in mid August. During scouting we found over 110 bucks, not counting the dink bucks. These were big 2x2 and better bucks. Lots of 140-150 bucks. Not many really mature bucks at all. But LOTS of up and comers. I have never seen even remotely close to that many bucks in my life, while scouting or hunting.
We found 4-5 bucks that we believed would go 180” while scouting. There was one area that contained two of those bucks, so we started our hunt there. We couldn’t locate the biggest of the two when we got there two days before season. So we made a plan to kill the second best buck in that area on opening morning. The plan was successful and my buddy had what ended up being a 176” buck on the ground 10 minutes into opening morning. His short left G4 was the only thing that kept him from 180”.
While my buddy packed his buck out, I relocated about 3 miles to try and find another one of our “target bucks”. I was successful in locating him, but now that he was out of velvet, I couldn’t put him any larger than 170”, and opted to pass on the 450 yard shot. He’ll be a good one next year!
I found another probably 170” perfectly symmetrical typical on the third day of the hunt that was still in velvet, and ended up not killing him either. He’ll be BIG I think. He looked young.
My buddy left to return to work on the 4th day of our hunt and I was solo after that. I found probably 5 more bucks in that 160-170” range throughout the next 5 days. One was an awesome 3x3 with probably 18-20” G2’s and 11-12” G3’s. He looked extremely old and I actually made an attempt to kill this buck on the 7th day of the hunt. Had him bedded at 320 yards and could only see his head. It was a downpour for 2 straight hours and he never got out of his bed, and I opted not to take the head shot. I didn’t relocate to try and kill him because I would have needed to cross a huge flat that he was over looking. I never relocated the buck.
On the 9th day I glassed what I thought was a nice a buck with good tine length at a little over a mile away. He dropped into a ravine and didn’t pop out. I assumed he bedded somewhere in there. I dropped my 800’ elevation, made a big loop, and climb 800’ up his mountain and worked in slowly from the downwind side. Barely exposing the ravine terrain with every step and looking for him cautiously. As luck would have it, I spotted him before he spotted me. Bedded at 100 yards. He looked compact, but heavy and nice tine length. I trusted the assessment I made of him from long range and didn’t spend much time analyzing him from up close. I shot him in his bed.
He ended up being 180”, with 3.5” eyeguards, 38” of mass and a 6” extra on his right side. It was a great end to a hard hunt!
There were few mature bucks left on the landscape. And what were there, seemed to have stunted growth from the hard winter. Giant bodies and small forks.
But there is a crop of GREAT bucks coming up. No doubt about it. Even after the winter, this was by far the best hunt I’ve ever had. I’ve hunted mule deer in CA, ID, CO, NE, AZ, MT and UT. Nothing has compared to these deer numbers, or quality of deer.
I’ll upload pics of our bucks and some scouting/hunting photos also!
from CA. One in mid July and one in mid August. During scouting we found over 110 bucks, not counting the dink bucks. These were big 2x2 and better bucks. Lots of 140-150 bucks. Not many really mature bucks at all. But LOTS of up and comers. I have never seen even remotely close to that many bucks in my life, while scouting or hunting.
We found 4-5 bucks that we believed would go 180” while scouting. There was one area that contained two of those bucks, so we started our hunt there. We couldn’t locate the biggest of the two when we got there two days before season. So we made a plan to kill the second best buck in that area on opening morning. The plan was successful and my buddy had what ended up being a 176” buck on the ground 10 minutes into opening morning. His short left G4 was the only thing that kept him from 180”.
While my buddy packed his buck out, I relocated about 3 miles to try and find another one of our “target bucks”. I was successful in locating him, but now that he was out of velvet, I couldn’t put him any larger than 170”, and opted to pass on the 450 yard shot. He’ll be a good one next year!
I found another probably 170” perfectly symmetrical typical on the third day of the hunt that was still in velvet, and ended up not killing him either. He’ll be BIG I think. He looked young.
My buddy left to return to work on the 4th day of our hunt and I was solo after that. I found probably 5 more bucks in that 160-170” range throughout the next 5 days. One was an awesome 3x3 with probably 18-20” G2’s and 11-12” G3’s. He looked extremely old and I actually made an attempt to kill this buck on the 7th day of the hunt. Had him bedded at 320 yards and could only see his head. It was a downpour for 2 straight hours and he never got out of his bed, and I opted not to take the head shot. I didn’t relocate to try and kill him because I would have needed to cross a huge flat that he was over looking. I never relocated the buck.
On the 9th day I glassed what I thought was a nice a buck with good tine length at a little over a mile away. He dropped into a ravine and didn’t pop out. I assumed he bedded somewhere in there. I dropped my 800’ elevation, made a big loop, and climb 800’ up his mountain and worked in slowly from the downwind side. Barely exposing the ravine terrain with every step and looking for him cautiously. As luck would have it, I spotted him before he spotted me. Bedded at 100 yards. He looked compact, but heavy and nice tine length. I trusted the assessment I made of him from long range and didn’t spend much time analyzing him from up close. I shot him in his bed.
He ended up being 180”, with 3.5” eyeguards, 38” of mass and a 6” extra on his right side. It was a great end to a hard hunt!
There were few mature bucks left on the landscape. And what were there, seemed to have stunted growth from the hard winter. Giant bodies and small forks.
But there is a crop of GREAT bucks coming up. No doubt about it. Even after the winter, this was by far the best hunt I’ve ever had. I’ve hunted mule deer in CA, ID, CO, NE, AZ, MT and UT. Nothing has compared to these deer numbers, or quality of deer.
I’ll upload pics of our bucks and some scouting/hunting photos also!
. Must be something with the photos being screenshots. 
️
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