67 Late Deer?

[jbricejr]

Just curious if anyone here had the tag and how you did? I did and put in the miles and came up empty. I saw a fair number of smaller bucks, but no older boys. It seemed that most of the deer were very high as we didn't have much snow - some deer were up just below their summer ranges. With the exception of Indian Creek, I saw no other hunters tracks up high. My guess is the nasty winter we had 2 winters back killed the older bucks, and the older age class is simply still missing. That's a hard tag to eat but I wanted a good buck or nothing.
John

 

[CouesFanatic]

when did the hunt end? So I guess this last snow was a little late? I wish I had that tag.

 

[idahoan]

I thought it ended on the Nov. 30, but it could've changed this year?

 

[Blank]

I had the late 64/65 muzzleloader tag, and saw the same thing. I hunted hard and long for 15 of the 30 days (in both units), and came up empty for big bucks. I heard of a 28" heavy being killed, and another being seen and missed. No such luck for me. Most were 20" 3x3's and smaller, and there is no reason to shoot next years breeders.

 

[hikein]

I had that tag last year with similar issues. It ends Nov. 30th. I hunted very hard but the weather was too warm and there was no snow. I glassed and hiked my tail off and really only saw 4 decent bucks. On my first day saw an ugly, willowy, sort of non-typical and passed thinking that this was a great unit and I'm hunting in the rut! Stupid. I'd hunt it again but I'd pray hard for cold snowy weather.

 

[jbricejr]

I probably saw 20-30 different bucks, a mix of fork horns, and small 3X3's and 4X4s. The best buck I saw was a 3X4 probably 26" with ok mass that I debated about shooting for almost 2 hrs. It was fairly early in my hunt so I walked away. Near the end of the hunt I almost shot an interesting 23-24" buck with some extra points, but I still had 2 full days to hunt so I just couldn't make myself pull the trigger. The widest and tallest buck I saw was a big 2X2. I had the same tag in 2007 and shot a 165 class 4x4, but everything else I saw was significantly smaller on that hunt. Just from talking to people that had the tag not that many years ago, if you put in the effort then you could get a good buck. Judging from what I've seen and am hearing from others now that's no longer the case.

This was a tag soup year for me, including this hunt, and a Region G Wyoming tag that I blew my 3 pref points on. Fortunately a cow elk just went in the freezer.
John

 

[Christian]

67 had the highest winterkill in the state over the winter of 07/08 according to F&G's stats on fawn mortality. Obviously the bucks suffered greatly, too.

The Christian