Wyoming deer hunt 2009

In the spring of 2009, the desire to get a job that I didn't have to struggle to make it on, took me to Wyoming. I had already missed the deadline for controled hunt applications for that year, so it initially looked like I wouldn't be able to hunt until another season. After studying as much as I could, I found that Wyoming issues leftover tags on a first come, first served basis. I figured out where I thought would be my best chance to get one of these tags, and settled down to wait until I could get one. After sharing this information with my Cousin Jim, who I grew up with and have hunted with for our entire lives, he thought it would be a great idea.

The tags would come up for sale on July 7th. But by this time, I had come home to work for one of my close friends, who was fighting a battle with cancer. {At the time I am writing this, He is doing fine.} When the time came to get the tags, I got online and was able to get one for each of us.

Jim was also going to Wyoming on an elk hunt, so we decided to wait a few days after the opener to start, so He would miss a few days less work.

I live a lot closer to our hunt area than Jim does, so I got there a day before Jim did. I found a likely spot to camp, in a national forest campground. It had everything that makes a camp a home, a pump for water, and an outhouse. It was also vacant most of the time.

The next morning when I came out of the trailer just at daylight, I was greeted by a cow moose walking through camp, at about 100 feet from my trailer. I took some pictures, but I was apparently nervous, and they are blurry.

When I had finished doing what needed to be done in camp, I decided to go try hunting a place that I had found while I was working in the area. When I got to the town of Saratoga, on my way to hunt, there was a game check. I stopped, hoping that I could get some helpful information from the biologist. As I pulled up behind his pickup, I noticed a freshly killed cow moose head in the back of his pickup. I found out from a game warden later, that this was the cow that I had seen that morning. Apparently someone had shot it from the road and left it lay. Someone found it shortly afterward and it was processed and given to a hunter who had drawn the cow tag, but was unable to hunt because of illness.

After an informative visit with the biologist, I continued to where I was planning on hunting. It was a walk in area, private land that is accessible to the public. I walked several miles, but found no deer. I did find a shed antler from a 5 point bull elk, so the hike was definately worth it. When I returned to camp, Jim had arrived.

The next morning we got everything moved into Jim's pickup and away we went. We decided to go exploring to see where we would concentrate our hunting. There are some high mountains all around the area, two separate mountain ranges with peaks well over 10,000 feet. We drove a main forest road that the biologist had suggested, that skirts the edge of the forest, just above the private land and BLM land. There were several inches of snow, and at times it was snowing hard. We found some promising areas, but no deer or even tracks. We returned to the area that camp was in and with some light left, decided to try a hunt above camp. We saw some elk, some deer tracks, some deer on private land, and spotted an area that looked good for another day.

The following day was clear and cold. We decided to try the area that we had driven the day before, and find a good spot to climb to the high peaks. On the way to where we wanted to go, we saw hundreds of deer, all on private land. After finding where we wanted to go to the high country, we parked, put on our packs, and headed up. After we had climbed for a couple of hours, in the snow, we had seen no tracks, but for two elk. A snack and some pictures later, we decided to try some lower country. After another careful study of our maps to make sure that we were not trespassing, we hunted some fringe areas. Timber above, sagebrush below, lots of small canyons, we finally saw some deer on public land, but no bucks. We did come across a small herd of elk with a bull with jet black horns, and he was very interested in his cows.

The next day took us to the area that we had spotted a couple evenings before. A study of our maps told us that it is a wildlife management area. It includes about 10,000 acres of foothill wintering ground, and borders national forest land. The management area has roads every little ways, and had seen lots of traffic. We did start seeing deer as soon as we stopped to look, including our first public land buck. He was a small forked horn that we had no interest in killing at that time. While we were watching him, he bedded down about 10 yards off of a road. Shortly after he bedded, a pickup started coming down the hill toward him with two hunters in it. He heard the pickup and got out of his bed, only to walk back to the road that the pickup was coming down. They apparently couldn't see each other, because the little buck just walked into a small canyon and bedded down again, and the pickup just kept driving. He was less than 50 yards from them when they drove by.

After checking out the road that the pickup had been on, we came back to where the little buck had been. I dropped Jim off to walk the small canyon above the buck, then I drove down the road to pick him up. I walked out to where I had seen the little buck bed down and waited. In a few minutes here came some does that Jim had jumped. Only after they ran by, did the little buck get up, he still didn't know I was there. He stood there looking at the does until Jim came right up on him, then he ran for a mile.

We then found a good spot to access the national forest. We parked then put on our packs and started climbing. When we got into the edge of the trees, Jim pointed and two bucks stood up about 75 yards away. They were a lot bigger than the one we had seen, but we weren't quite ready for them yet. We waited until they moved off, then continued up the mountain. When we had gone about a mile up the mountain, we stopped to glass an area and have a snack. After a few minutes, those same bucks came out onto an open hillside about 150 yards away and began feeding. We had no choice but to watch them, because they were right where we planned on going. After they moved back into the timber, we moved on. After getting to the top of the next ridge, we decided to work our way back down to the pickup. We did end up seeing several more deer, but only one buck and he was a spike. It was dark by the time we got back on a main road.

The next day brought us back to the same area, just a couple of canyons over. This road put us up the mountain to almost the level where we had turned back the day before. We parked, and up we went again. The weather was trying to get bad on us this day, with fog coming and going. While we were glassing, a couple of hunters came up behind us. We walked and visited for a while then they went on their own way. We stopped for lunch at 9500 feet, and decided that this was a good time to go back to camp and make a dutch oven stew.

When we got back to camp, we dug a pit and got a fire going in it , then I got out the dutch oven, and carefully followed my Wife's instructions on putting ingredients together. We then put it in the pit, covered it and went on a short hunt before dark. We saw some does, but no bucks.

The next morning I dug up our stew, only to find that our fire hadn't been big enough and had gone out before the stew was done. We put the dutch oven on the stove to finish cooking. We then had enough prepared food for a week.

The plan for the day was to try some completely new territory, it would be all BLM land, sagebrush and grassland. Then after a while we were to go to Rawlins for a shower and some supplies.We studied our maps for the property boundries, used my gps to figure out for sure we weren't tresspassing, and started hunting country similar to what we are used to hunting in the desert country of southeast Oregon.

Our first hunt in this area turned up several deer, including a couple of bucks that we again decided to pass on. It seemed to be a good area, but the wind was howling, and it was time to go get a shower. We explored a little more in the pickup and then went on to Rawlins.

After a $10 shower, and some gas and groceries, we headed back toward camp, hoping to beat the blizzard that was forecast for the afternoon and evening. We made it back without the roads becoming a big problem, but it was starting to snow hard. We had daylight left, so we checked out a place that we weren't sure on the access to. We had just decided that it wasn't worth chancing trespassing, when out through the sagebrush and heavily falling snow, walks a big bull Moose. That was a first for both of us, not seeing a bull Moose, but seeing one in sagebrush. We watched him and took pictures until he got into the closest trees and out of our sight. We then went toward camp, but it wasn't quite dark yet, so we drove on past camp into the national forest. The snow was falling very heavily by now, so when the road started getting a little hairy, we turned around to head back toward camp. Down the road a ways we saw brakelights ahead of us and when we got close, we could see the vehicle was just barely moving in the middle of the road. We supposed that the driver must have been scared of the slick road, however when we got close, we could tell that they were taking pictures of another big bull Moose that was just walking down the road. They let us go by to take our own pictures but I only got one that isn't very good, because the snow filled my lense.

The following day brought us right back to where we had seen the deer the day before. We made our first hunt in the same area that we had hunted the day before. We hunted the little draws and found the same deer as before, but no bigger bucks. A decision was made to go farther toward the private land to the north. There are some big bluffs, and small canyons with short sagebrush.Once again, we had studied our maps, and used the gps to figure just where we were. When I figured that I was about a mile from the private land boundry, I was stopping to glass, and decide what I was going to do next, when I heard a vehicle. I looked around until I spotted it parked right on the highest bluff in front of me. When I moved on, the vehicle moved, when I got back where I could see our pickup, the other vehicle was nearly to it. When I came into view, the vehicle stopped moving. After a while, I moved to where they could see me, then they pulled up and parked next to our pickup. I was a long ways away and couldn't see what was going on, but I didn't think that anyone had got out. By the time I got back close to the pickup, Jim had come from over the hill. He got back a few minutes before I did, and when I got close I heard Jim say that He was pretty sure that we were on public land, and was explaining how careful we were being to avoid trespassing. When I got there and got out the maps and gps to show where we were and where the private lands were, the young man then said that we weren't actually on private land, but wanted to make sure that we knew where the boundries were. He then asked us how we got to where we were. when we showed him on the map, he said that we had come across private land to get there. This we already knew, because on the BLM road there are signs that state "Public access across private lands". He is a security guy for one of the big ranches, and apparently is supposed to try to get everyone to stay out of the area. We were ready to leave the area anyway, so we didn't pursue it.

When we left there, we went to the extreme western edge of our hunt area to check it out. I had been there a couple of times when I worked in the area so I wanted to check it out. We found a place to get into the forest on public land, so we checked it out on the roads. We saw several deer, but no bucks. We decided that it will be a good spot for tomorrow. As we were leaving, we watched some beavers working in their dam just below the road. On our way back to camp, we saw two herds of elk and a few more does.

The next morning had us back just below where we had seen the beaver. There were open hillsides with sagebrush and grass, at the top of the ridges were rims, and just over the top was dense timber. At the bottom of the hill was a section of private property. When we got out of the pickup it was windy, cold, sometimes foggy, and snowing. All in all a pretty miserable start to a day hunting.

Together we walked up a trail to the top of the ridge, where we split up to go our own way. I walked over the top to verify that it was really thick and you can't see into it. When I got back on the top, the fog rolled in so I couldn't see 20 yards. I walked down the ridge for a distance, then waited for a while, until the weather started to break. I watched some open areas below me for a while and decided that I was going back to the pickup to get warm.

As I got closer to the pickup, the weather was getting better. I couldn't see Jim, so I walked down below the pickup to look over a little hill to see what I could see. Just as I could see over I looked back, and saw that Jim was almost to the pickup. I went to look anyway and there were some deer there. I watched for a few minutes and saw only does and fawns. There are some trees between me and the pickup, so I thought I would go through them to see if I could jump something to Jim. As I was making one last look around I spotted a buck at about 800 yards. I didn't have to look long to decide that he was big enough to try for. When I looked to see where Jim was, I saw that he was in the pickup, and coming to get me. I frantically waved my arms to get his attention so the pickup wouldn't scare the buck away. When he saw me, he came to see what the excitement was about. After looking at the buck, he told me that he figured that I should go kill him. A little planning and I was on my way.

I would go back up around the trees that the pickup was parked by, so I would be out of sight. Jim would stay where he could watch the buck, and when I got back where I could see him, he will signal if he has moved or not. As soon as I could see Jim again I looked at him through my binoculars, and he indicated that the buck was still there.I took a few more careful steps before I could see the buck. He was feeding, and looking away from me. I took off my pack and everything else that I didn't need and started toward the buck. After just a few steps, the buck looked up and right at me, and I knew it was now or never. He was standing broadside now and I could not get a rest, so I had to shoot offhand. I put the crosshairs just behind his shoulder and squeezed off, the 338 roared and down he went. I let out a yell, and I heard Jim yell, but he was telling me to shoot again. I looked back at the buck and he was up and moving away now, I pulled the gun up again and shot him right behind the ribs and he was down for good. A nice heavy horned 3X3. Not a huge buck, but very respectable, especially after 8 days of hunting, and he was by far the biggest one that we saw on public land.

After several pictures, we got him dressed out and then dragged him to the pickup. It was about 400 yards away and on the road. We had lots of day left so we went around the other side of the mountain to hunt for a buck for Jim. I let Jim out where we had been a few days before and he walked across several small canyons for about two miles. When he was almost to where I was going to pick him up, he shot a small forked horn. He had needed to be across the state in a couple of days to go elk hunting, so he shot what he saw. Jim ended up killing a spike bull on his elk hunt.