Kate's Western Public Land Hunt

 

For the past 7 years, my friends and I have dipped our toes into western hunting in Wyoming, with occasional forays into other states. From my first antelope spot-and-stalk, I was hooked. Some years bring us great success, some years it's tag soup, but it's always an adventure and an eye-opening learning experience. Failing to draw any elk tags this year, myself, Andre, and Kyle decided to take advantage of Wyoming’s inexpensive doe/fawn tags. It would allow us to scout out a new unit, and hopefully fulfill our usual goals of filling our freezers and enduring some minor trials and tribulations. We set out to Wyoming in early November with a mix of antelope doe/fawn tags, and deer doe/fawn tags valid for whitetails in the unit.

 

 

Up bright and early on the first morning of the hunt, we hopped into Kyle's 4Runner before sunrise. Within 10 minutes, our eyes were assaulted with flocks of whitetails; an encouraging start. However, every piece of state land and walk-in area we scouted was already occupied. Guess it wasn’t too late in the season for other hunters either. Our next stop was a historic site that allowed deer hunting in designated blinds, assuming you applied in advance for a permission slip - which we did. We were greeted with whitetails in the parking lot; seems like a decent spot to fill our whitetail tags. We decided to keep this option in our back pocket for a windy and cold morning or evening sit.

 

 

Criss crossing our way through the unit, we checked out nearly every piece of state land we could access, giving us an idea of where we’d like to walk in. We also scoped out camping options; our original spot planned turned out to be fairly abysmal. It consisted of a small area where camping was allowed, with no latrines to be found. This would normally be fine, but there was also nowhere to set up our camp toilet that wouldn’t involve a high chance of mooning a vehicle passing through. Finding this slightly undesirable, we debated getting bougie with an AirBnB versus hitting up a KOA or other campsite.

 

 

 

Motivated by a desire to use our camping gear, and maybe a little bit of cheapness, we settled on a campground ran by the county. It turned out to be great; besides several flocks of grouse, we had the place to ourselves. Little did we know, these feathered fiends were an ill omen. After setting up camp and sampling some locally made freeze dried strawberry ice cream squares a nice lady at the Cenex talked me into (delicious), we set out for the nearest walk-in area. We soon found that trucks with Wyoming plates often weren’t competing with us for big game; it seems the area was popular with upland hunters. Andre spotted a small group of antelope about 3/4 of a mile from the road, so we enthusiastically marched in. 

 

 

How (or why) we manage to stuff that much gear into our day-packs is a mystery we're not willing to investigate.

 

Our stalk on 3 antelope does was a success, with the curious animals eventually working their way towards us after we belly-crawled over the top of a hill. My suppressed Cooper Timberline was gentle on Andre’s and Kyle’s ears, and not so gentle on the antelope doe at 200 yards - she dropped like a sack of grain to Federal's Terminal Ascent bullet . Maybe one day I’ll win Andre over to the joy of shooting with a can. I gutted the antelope, and we debated how we wanted to get it back to our vehicle. The only thing Andre hates more than quartering an animal in the field is pineapple on pizza, so we rigged up a 3 man carry, with Andre creatively strapping the deer dragger to his pack. The 3/4 mile carry back to the road was an intense forearm workout for myself and Kyle carrying the front legs, and I managed to only fall on my face once in the rapidly descending darkness. Back at camp, we tossed the doe on a folding table, and quickly had her quartered and cooling in game bags.

 

Nobody seems particularly happy at 5:30am, for some reason. Still, we manage to muster in the dark and hit the road; as the sun rose, Andre quickly honed in on whitetails moseying about at dawn on state land. 

 

 

We did our best barbed wire limbo, netting a new hole in my down pants (why was I still wearing those, without a shell?). A not-so-stealthy stalk ensued, which turned south due to a very loud footstep on some plastic litter. Andre tried to get a bead on a group of whitetail does, but they were having none of it, and hustled off the state land. Andre suddenly honed in on another curious whitetail staring at us from less than 200 yards away, and quickly bang-flopped it with his 270Win Tikka loaded with Hornady ELD-X . It wasn’t as big as he hoped, but given the hunting pressure we were seeing and the lack of animals on public land, it was definitely still a win. We stopped back at camp and made quick work of the deer, setting Andre’s filled game bags on a concrete picnic bench to cool off in the 34 degree air. Back on the road, we continued to see plenty of antelope and deer on private, zero on public. No matter; that’s how it goes after opener.

 

 

Dodging several pheasants on the road, we pulled into a walk-in area being traversed by an upland hunter and his dog, and pulled out our binos to give it a gander. A huge bird of prey was perched on a post 10 feet from the 4Runner, its lunch clutched in its talons. We watched wide-eyed as it quickly ripped apart and devoured a large rodent. We thought little of it, but it was an escalation of the ill tides that birds would bring this trip. 

 

 

Running short on other options, going for a hike into a large habitat management area seemed like a dandy idea. We pulled up and were greeted by 3 other trucks - but all had Wyoming plates, and several had sporting dog kennels in the back. Pheasant hunters; maybe not ideal, but at least not competing for the same animals. Our 6 mile jaunt got us a gander at some elk, mule deer, cows, and hyper-charged hunting dogs, but no whitetails or antelope. Still, hiking and using our spotting scopes to eyeball animals felt like a good way to spend the afternoon. 

 

 

More driving at sunset only yielded mule deer on public land, so we headed back to camp. What greeted us there was the remnants of avian mischief. The game bags were undisturbed, but the ziploc holding Andre’s deer’s heart and tenderloins was a red mess on the ground that had been vacuumed clean of any scraps of flesh. Blood and bird poop dotted the concrete bench where it had been laying, pointing towards the culprits. I assumed it was a bird of prey, but Andre is sure it was the ravenous campground murder-grouse. We’ll never know for sure.

 

 

The temperatures dropped and the wind kicked up to 20mph through the night and into the morning, with gusts over 35mph. The tent had no problem bearing it, but it was a bit rough on our sleep. It was exactly the kind of morning we were saving for the historic area with designated ground blinds. Kyle and Andre headed out to one, and I meandered my way to another, getting slightly lost in the dark but making it there eventually. 

 

 

Kyle managed to successfully down a whitetail during the early morning hours. This came as a complete surprise to me, because my blind was only 600 yards away and I didn’t hear a peep; the cold winds completely masked his Tikka T3X Lite 7mm Rem Mag’s shot with Federal Berger Hybrid Hunter ammo. We rendezvoused and approached the downed animal. Excited to tag his first deer, Kyle pulled out his tag wallet, grabbed a doe/fawn tag, and notched it. Unfortunately, Andre soon noticed that Kyle had accidentally notched his antelope doe/fawn tag, not his deer doe/fawn tag - instantly invalidating the antelope tag. It was a bummer for sure - stalking antelope is without a doubt some of the most fun to be had hunting. However, we saw two big positives: the mistake was caught quickly and Kyle got the correct deer tag notched and attached, and the mistake had invalidated a $34 doe/fawn tag, rather than a $300+ buck tag, or a $700+ elk tag. It was a good lesson for all of us: when hunting with multiple tags, keep them separated, and clearly mark the bag or envelope carrying them with the tag type. 

 

 

Very satisfied with 3 tags filled and none of us going home empty handed, we headed back to camp and packed up. Magpies and grouse greeted us at our campsite - they were considerably less cute now that we suspected some them had devoured a deer heart and tenderloins. In the daylight, we noticed a new clue: bloody bird footprints dotted our white folding table. Further research pointed towards magpies as the likely culprits, but we preferred the narrative of vampire grouse. Another lesson learned - beware of birds while your meat is cooling.