My 2013 Wyoming Buck

[bowhunter3]

Shot my first whitetail on the evening of opening day here in Wyoming. Story to come later, when I get back. Too long to type on my phone. Here's s few pics though....
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[RILEYFISH]

Nice buck my friend. Congrats to you.
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[Theekillerbee]

Nice deer!
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[bowhunter3]

Well, my dad lowered his standards and filled his buck tag this evening. Then, I finished the night off shooting a whitetail doe. Headed back to Utah tomorrow with a couple bucks and a couple does down.
I put a coyote down yesterday too.
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[wiperhunter2]

Good going, sounds like a successful hunt. There must be a bunch of deer where you hunt up there. How wide is the rack on the whitetail?
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[bowhunter3]

He's just over 19" outside spread
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[bowhunter3]

So, I am still going to condense the story a bit, because I could go on forever on all that happened on this week long hunt.
First, I will just say that a member on here was very kind in offering some info, and I am grateful for that. He knows who he is, and can admit to it if he wants, but I won't throw his name out there to get bombarded with questions.
Now, to the hunt.
My dad and I arrived early Halloween morning to our hunt area after about an 8 hour drive, which had season opening the next day. We met with different landowners I contacted from 8:00 AM to 5:30 PM. Now we had a first-hand look at the lay of the land, and the dozen or so properties we had permission to hunt. Saw 4 bucks on one ranch this day, but not many deer at all. We came up with a game plan to hunt a Walk-In-Access area, which bordered up to a property with corn that we had permission to hunt. I set up on the front field in the area, and my dad worked back a little further to find a spot. POW, I hear maybe 20 minutes later. I called him a few minutnd was told that he shot at a 24-26" muley buck, but wasn't sure if he hit it. It jumped over a fence behind the walk-in area, which was posted. Therefore, we spent a good portion of the day figuring out who owned that land. We did finally figure it out, and they gave us permission to go check out the situation. We found no blood, and no deer in the area, and looking back we are pretty sure his scope was looking over some brush, but the bi-pod did not quite get the barrel over some bushes. Bummer. Well, I sat in that area that opening evening, and he went down in a little further. I had 2 whitetail does to my north, and 3 small muley bucks to my south and east. The bucks kept looking SE, then feed, then look, and feed, etc. When finally, one fed off and another looked and bolted. There was a spike that stayed around. 30 seconds later, I see a beautiful whitetail buck standing right at the fence on the side that is private. I snuck down into the open field and get set up on my shooting sticks. Seconds later, he jumped the fence, stopped broadside at about 180 yards... and took a dirt nap. Crazy, the muley spike just lifted his head, then went back to feeding. The whitetail does did the same thing. I had this buck tag and a whitetail doe tag. I could have tagged out right there, but would have had nothing to do while I waited for my dad to fill his two tags. The spike went over and smelled my buck, and just fed off. There were even 2 more does that joined the two already there that just stayed out feeding about 250 yards away from me while I took pictures and gutted the buck. Man was it fun to drag this thing out aver a mile in a walk-in only area. It took both of us over 2 hours.
So, I sat in a spot about 300 yards away from my dad and had him sit there for 5 sits (3 mornings, 2 evenings). I saw shooter muleys every sit (22"+). I even put one to bed, but 50 yards onto some private property. We tracked down the land owner, and got permission. I was happy to see he was still there 3 hours later. My dad just starts getting into position when we catch some movement to our right. A coyote we may have scared makes a direct line running straight at this buck. It would have literally run him over in his bed if he didn't stand and run. So, that was blown. The bucks were there, just wasn't able to close the deal. So, my dad switches me spots Monday evening, since I'm seeing the bucks. What do you know, he sees 1 whitetail doe, and I have a 4 point and 2 point muley come in 25 yards from me. Well, he decided he was dropping standards to a 3 point on Tuesday. We only saw 1 doe in the morning, and went to check out the ranch we saw 3 bucks on the day before season. We spotted a group of about 8-10 deer, with a 2 point and a 3 point. So, we put on a stalk and he shot his buck at about 35-40 yards. We got it gutted and loaded into the truck. Hurried about 25 minutes away to the area we had been hunting. I got my stuff on and walked in. shooting hours ended about 5:25. I got into position at 4:59. About 5:15 I had 2 muley does come in close behind me. Then, around 5:20 a whitetail comes into the field about 150 yards away. I glassed it, and it was a doe. Got down to a prone position and let her have it. Just like that, we go from 2 out of 4 tags filled, to being tagged out. My day shot his doe Sunday evening. We hung the deer, deboned them in the morning, and drove back through the day yesterday. All in all, a very fun hunt. I rarely get to rifle hunt, since I do the archery here. Actually, I'm pretty sure this is the only rifle deer hunt I have ever done with my dad.
And last but not least, the best part of this whole this was that I inherited my grandpa's 7 mag after he passed away late August, and this buck was the first animal I harvested with it.

Wow, by far my longest post on BFT.... and trust me it is condensed down. It was a very eventful week.
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[PACKFAN]

Glad you got your bucks, that's a nice whitetail. I just got back today. The wife, our two daughters and my self ended up filling our ten tags. 4 bucks and 6 does, does were all white tail and bucks were mule deer. We saw a site I never thought I would see where we hunt, a big old grizzley bear, long way from the Mts. down in the sage flats. My buddies that were hunting up there as well notified fish & game and they came out to see if they could locate him. The ranchers I know were not too happy knowing there was a grizzley in the area. I will post a few pictures of our hunt when I get settled back in at home. Pheasant hunt was a little slow for us this year as we only brought ten birds home, but the little Britt had a good time, better than the 10 degrees below zero she hunted in last year. I returned your call about a cooler but never heard back so I hope everything worked out okay for you. We let some of our deer hang for the week we were there, got down to 11 degrees one night with most nights below freezing. Will be cutting a couple up tomorrow. We take a vacuum sealer with us every year and after few days with the does hanging and my daughter from Maryland's buck hanging we spent one whole day processing the meat from 5 deer. Glad you and your dad enjoyed your trip and knowing the WY. people up there the way I do I'm sure you made some new friends. PS I should have recommended you take a deer cart along to use in the walk in areas. We never did use a walk in area this year as I had met another rancher through my friend up there that allowed the Gals to hunt his fields after he and his son had taken their deer opening weekend. We were able to drive my truck to all of them. Once again I'm glad you had a great hunt up there, sure beats rifle hunting around here.
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[bowhunter3]

Glad to hear you got your tags filled. Everyone we talked to said they were not seeing the deer they have in years past. I thought it was a great hunt, not sure if they just weren't getting away from the roads or what. We had coolers for the meat, my rack/cape would not fit in any of them, so that's what I was asking about, but I tracked someone down with some room in a chest freezer. I was just a bit concerned about hair slippage, when it was getting to the low 60's the first couple days. We just got finished with the processing of our 4 deer yesterday. Got some nice steaks, burger, and just finished up the last thing being the smoked sausage yesterday. We saw quite a few coyotes, and tons of pheasants (didn't get the chance to hunt them), but that grizzly was a shock I'm sure if you were in the general area you told me. We did meet quite a few nice folks up there, and had a great time. Wish my dad could have come home with a bigger buck, but you can't eat the antlers and we had fun. Plus, the opportunities were there. Anyways, can't wait to see some of your pics.
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[PACKFAN]

These pictures were taken with my old cell phone so they are not the best. My son-in-law from Maryland took some great pictures with his camera but hasn't sent them to us yet so these will have to do. We had a great trip with the family, now it's time to start looking forward to our Texas deer and hog hunt which is coming up in Jan. I held off on filling my buck tag until Friday evening as I had been hoping for a good white tail buck and wanted to spend Sat. hunting pheasant I had only hunted pheasant a couple hrs. during the week as I was busy taking care of deer. I shot a small 3X3 mule deer that evening on my friend's place, I had a feeling that would be a mistake---it was. My oldest daughter still needed to fill her doe tag and wanted a whitetail doe so we headed over to the ranch that they had gotten their bucks at early Sat. morning and she busted a nice doe at 6:45 that was feeding in the picked corn as I turned to head back to get my truck out of the standing corn trots a nice 5X5 white tail buck and stops about 150 yards away and stands looking at us all I could do was wave at him and say maybe next year. I'm not sure but I think he had a on his face as he trotted away.[:/]
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[bowhunter3]

Not a bad year at all there....

Just got word back from my taxidermist, and he tapes out at 143 2/8". There are definitely bigger out there, but he's heading for my wall.
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[WET1]

Sounds like a fantastic trip Gale. I bet it's been a long time since you and your wife hunted with both your girls.
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[PACKFAN]

It was a great time having both daughters hunting together after 10 years. Don't know how many more trips we will be able to make up there do to the WY. Fish & Game trying to raise license fees. They have been trying to increase the fees for the past couple years and are looking at a 50% increase for nonresidents which would put the deer tags up around $450 dollars or so. That would probably force us into quitting our WY. hunts.
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[submoa]

What a great hunt, especially with family. Next year if they don't raise the prices I'm going to try and take my Dad up to WY I think. Great post
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