mightyhunter
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Interesting would be the best word to describe my 2018 deer hunting with a general tag in NW Wyoming. The hunt was tough to say the least. I did not fill my tag. This is the first general deer tag I have eaten in Wyoming since 2001.That being said, I am going to be 64 in another month and there is no doubt I am slowing up. My right knee is still injured as a result of last year's sheep hunt. I am trying to heal up without surgery. This may sound like a big excuse, but unfortunately it is my new reality.
I hit my favorite early season haunt on the opener with a new hunting buddy. It is a miserable place to get into and out of. I did not hunt it in 2017, but had taken a nice buck in there in 2016. For the first few hours of the opener, we glassed hard and saw nothing. Around mid-morning we moved to another nearby spot. The wind was not right and we had become a little complacent. We jumped three bucks in an avalanche chute that were totally on alert as a result of the wind. One was a 3x3 and the other a decent 4x4. The other buck was at least a 190+ inch typical. This was the second largest typical I have seen in my lifetime of hunting. He walked away without a shot being fired. I was just not on the edge I needed to be for the harvest.
After this experience, things got worse as the season progressed. I hunted my favorite drainage for the next few weeks. In 2016, I had seen a 30+ typical buck while elk hunting that area. My deer tag was filled and that deer walked. I have taken numerous deer in this drainage from 160 to 185 B&C. During the next 8-10 days I hunted all my favorite spots in that drainage, I saw nothing. Nothing would include a large pack of wolves and one very large male lion.
I hunted some other areas in an attempt to locate some bucks. In one of these areas, I saw a few 1-2 year old bucks and a few does and fawns. I also glassed up some elk and sheep. By this time, my son had showed up to hunt the last few days of October and the first days of November. Our usual spots produced virtually nothing but wolves. On November 30th, I turned my son loose to cover some ground. Around 9:00 AM that morning while walking the trail in with my hunting buddy, I spotted a very nice typical buck just above me on the ridge. He gave us the "Eastman Pose" but quickly disappeared. Again, I was not quick enough on the rifle.
After striking out in my October areas, I moved over to the North Fork of the Shoshone for the first 10 days of November. I saw lots of does, fawns, elk and a few sheep. The highlight was watching a large boar grizzly chasing 8 ewes around in a circle. I did not see a single buck mule deer during this period of time. Last year, in the same spot my hunting buddy and I had taken two average typical bucks in two days. The area I hunt is popular with many outfitters. In many days of hunting, I only heard a couple of shots.
This year reminded me of the difference between a good season and a bad season. Had my buddy and I harvested the two large bucks we saw in October, it may have been the best season ever. I don't have any answers for my brain slips where two good bucks got away. I can say that I saw more wolves than I did mature bucks. I can also say that I was seeing a lot more lion tracks in my spots. The area I hunted in October was the first one to fill it's 2018 wolf quota.
On November 15th, my hunting buddy and I took a long drive into Unit 109 and 106 to see what we could see. This was the last day of the LE season. Deer numbers for that time of the year were way, way down from what I observed. That day, we saw around a dozen muley bucks and at least 4 whitetail bucks. The whitetails were rutting and the mule deer bucks seemed ambivalent at best. The doe numbers were really low. I did see a typical on public that was around 23" inches wide with a crown of 3 points on one back tang. He was on the wander and had no does. That was the only interesting muley buck I observed.
I have some ideas about what is going on with the mule deer in this area. It may be the same problems mule deer are experiencing all over Wyoming. I think most of the problems are not fixable without some drastic changes. I think increasing the wolf quotas, enlarging the season for wolves and allowing wolf trapping would help. I think that allowing hunters to have more than a single lion tag a year would also help. Too many of the lion hunters are high grading and shooting only the biggest toms and letting others walk. Females and young toms can kill and eat a lot of deer.
I predicted years ago that the harvest of mule deer bucks on the North Fork of the Shoshone by outfitters with non resident hunters were depleting the resource. Anyone who would hire an outfitter to hunt the North Fork for a $ 4,500 5 day deer hunt should really think hard before doing so. I saw what few bucks they harvested in 2017 and 2018 and it was not great in quality or quantity. I blame the overharvest of mule deer bucks on the North Fork as the result of the "unintended consequences" of turning most of the local elk areas into LE in recent years. The outfitters lost their revenue stream when the G&F did this. Only a fool would think that the outfitters would quit the business and get out, instead they just upped the price on deer hunts and started hammering that resource.
I am confident that G&F will make some changes to the regs. They implemented a 4 pt minimum on the North and South Fork of the Shoshone in 2018. I could see this on the horizon for the Sunlight/Crandall. They may even eliminate the 105,106 and 109 LE late tag. They may just confine that tag to 109 only.
I had a good time hunting this area in 2018. I was disappointed in my level of success, but I can blame some of that on me. Am I contemplating hunting some other areas in Wyoming for 2019? Yes, I am.
just sayin...mh
I hit my favorite early season haunt on the opener with a new hunting buddy. It is a miserable place to get into and out of. I did not hunt it in 2017, but had taken a nice buck in there in 2016. For the first few hours of the opener, we glassed hard and saw nothing. Around mid-morning we moved to another nearby spot. The wind was not right and we had become a little complacent. We jumped three bucks in an avalanche chute that were totally on alert as a result of the wind. One was a 3x3 and the other a decent 4x4. The other buck was at least a 190+ inch typical. This was the second largest typical I have seen in my lifetime of hunting. He walked away without a shot being fired. I was just not on the edge I needed to be for the harvest.
After this experience, things got worse as the season progressed. I hunted my favorite drainage for the next few weeks. In 2016, I had seen a 30+ typical buck while elk hunting that area. My deer tag was filled and that deer walked. I have taken numerous deer in this drainage from 160 to 185 B&C. During the next 8-10 days I hunted all my favorite spots in that drainage, I saw nothing. Nothing would include a large pack of wolves and one very large male lion.
I hunted some other areas in an attempt to locate some bucks. In one of these areas, I saw a few 1-2 year old bucks and a few does and fawns. I also glassed up some elk and sheep. By this time, my son had showed up to hunt the last few days of October and the first days of November. Our usual spots produced virtually nothing but wolves. On November 30th, I turned my son loose to cover some ground. Around 9:00 AM that morning while walking the trail in with my hunting buddy, I spotted a very nice typical buck just above me on the ridge. He gave us the "Eastman Pose" but quickly disappeared. Again, I was not quick enough on the rifle.
After striking out in my October areas, I moved over to the North Fork of the Shoshone for the first 10 days of November. I saw lots of does, fawns, elk and a few sheep. The highlight was watching a large boar grizzly chasing 8 ewes around in a circle. I did not see a single buck mule deer during this period of time. Last year, in the same spot my hunting buddy and I had taken two average typical bucks in two days. The area I hunt is popular with many outfitters. In many days of hunting, I only heard a couple of shots.
This year reminded me of the difference between a good season and a bad season. Had my buddy and I harvested the two large bucks we saw in October, it may have been the best season ever. I don't have any answers for my brain slips where two good bucks got away. I can say that I saw more wolves than I did mature bucks. I can also say that I was seeing a lot more lion tracks in my spots. The area I hunted in October was the first one to fill it's 2018 wolf quota.
On November 15th, my hunting buddy and I took a long drive into Unit 109 and 106 to see what we could see. This was the last day of the LE season. Deer numbers for that time of the year were way, way down from what I observed. That day, we saw around a dozen muley bucks and at least 4 whitetail bucks. The whitetails were rutting and the mule deer bucks seemed ambivalent at best. The doe numbers were really low. I did see a typical on public that was around 23" inches wide with a crown of 3 points on one back tang. He was on the wander and had no does. That was the only interesting muley buck I observed.
I have some ideas about what is going on with the mule deer in this area. It may be the same problems mule deer are experiencing all over Wyoming. I think most of the problems are not fixable without some drastic changes. I think increasing the wolf quotas, enlarging the season for wolves and allowing wolf trapping would help. I think that allowing hunters to have more than a single lion tag a year would also help. Too many of the lion hunters are high grading and shooting only the biggest toms and letting others walk. Females and young toms can kill and eat a lot of deer.
I predicted years ago that the harvest of mule deer bucks on the North Fork of the Shoshone by outfitters with non resident hunters were depleting the resource. Anyone who would hire an outfitter to hunt the North Fork for a $ 4,500 5 day deer hunt should really think hard before doing so. I saw what few bucks they harvested in 2017 and 2018 and it was not great in quality or quantity. I blame the overharvest of mule deer bucks on the North Fork as the result of the "unintended consequences" of turning most of the local elk areas into LE in recent years. The outfitters lost their revenue stream when the G&F did this. Only a fool would think that the outfitters would quit the business and get out, instead they just upped the price on deer hunts and started hammering that resource.
I am confident that G&F will make some changes to the regs. They implemented a 4 pt minimum on the North and South Fork of the Shoshone in 2018. I could see this on the horizon for the Sunlight/Crandall. They may even eliminate the 105,106 and 109 LE late tag. They may just confine that tag to 109 only.
I had a good time hunting this area in 2018. I was disappointed in my level of success, but I can blame some of that on me. Am I contemplating hunting some other areas in Wyoming for 2019? Yes, I am.
just sayin...mh
