Success in the Wyoming Range

Eagle

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Fair warning, this will be a long winded thread in which I tell the story of my first backcountry hunt for Mule Deer and provide gear reviews as well. I'll try and break it up into a few different posts to keep them all easily readable, I hope.

Day 1 and 2, Drive out:

I left Huntsville at 2:30pm on Thursday September 10th and began the long drive to Pinedale, Wyoming. A quick stop in my hometown of Kevil, KY to switch vehicles and join my parents for dinner, and my Dad and I continued on with the 21 hours remaining in our drive. The drive was relatively uneventful aside from seeing a crashed plane along I80 outside of Laramie and we arrived in Pinedale, WY at 4:30pm on Friday the 11th. We quickly drove up to the Elkhart Park Trailhead for a short acclimation hike and then had dinner at the Wind River Brewery before turning in for the night.
 
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Eagle

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Day 3

We woke up and drove to the Wrangler Café for our last good meal. A quick trip to the rifle range to ensure that my gun was still on after the long drive, and we were off to the trailhead. We arrived at the trailhead right at 11:00am and began the 5 mile hike into the high country with visions of giant mule deer on my mind. The 2300’ gained during the hike was rougher on us than we anticipated, but after 4 hours, my 63 year old dad and I arrived at the small mountain lake we would call home for the next several days. My original plan was to camp in the basin directly above the lake, but a quick hike up the extra 300’ of elevation revealed no water source and a lot of fresh deer sign, so I elected for us to just camp as close to the water as we could. While filling our bladders at the small lake, I immediately noticed that we weren't the only deer hunters around, this lion track was relatively fresh and had me watching my back for the duration of the trip.

That evening we glassed around camp and didn’t spot a single deer. The sunset was beautiful with alpine glow and the colors of the changing Aspen leaves and it felt great to be back in the wild. My plan for the next day was to wake up before the sunrise and walk up to a point above camp to glass before heading for the main mountain ridge to glass on the west side into a large bowl that I felt would hold several deer.
 

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Eagle

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Day 4:

A short rain storm in the early AM kept me in my tent longer than I had planned but I was out of camp and on my way up towards the ridge with the sunrise. As I broke through a small patch of timber I looked up on a small ridge to see a deer staring at me and quickly realized it was two small fork horns out feeding. They watched me for a while before heading off towards the north side of the basin, so I continued on my way up. After 10 minutes of walking and stopping to see where the two bucks were headed I looked up the side of the basin and noticed a third deer higher up. I could immediately tell it was a larger deer and sat down to put my binos on him from 275 yards away. For the next ten minutes I watched the buck search for what had the two fork horns spooked, and surprisingly, he never looked my way. He eventually decided that whatever the threat was, it was enough to leave the basin and I watched as he skylined himself and gave me a great view of his 170” frame with huge fronts and weak backs.

At that moment I had a decision to make, continue up the ridge to glass the basin I had set out to hunt from the beginning, or head back to camp and try and find this buck again over the next couple of days before the opener. I chose to continue up, and arrived at the top of the ridge around 8am after taking a much steeper route than I had intended due to trying to keep the larger buck from seeing me as I made my way up. I immediately spotted four different bucks, but they were all getting ready to bed and were shortly in the timber patches. Over the next 4 hours as I glassed the basin I found a couple more bucks, but nothing that would have me pulling the trigger. However, with the number of young bucks I spotted in the basin, I was confident a shooter would eventually show himself. I decided to head back down to camp for the evening to rest and then glass for the larger buck later.

After a short rest back at camp, I looked up towards the ridge where the larger buck had been that morning and noticed something strange. I pulled out my binos and quickly realized that two other hunters, along with five llamas were making their way up and over the ridge into the basin I had spent months studying. To say I was dumbfounded would be an understatement. I sat there and talked it over with my dad and decided I would head to another basin the next morning 1.5 miles away and see what I could find there. That evening we glassed around camp checking to see if the hunters pushed any deer out of the basin they headed into. As the sun was setting, we watched the two forkies I had spooked that morning came back to our side of the ridge, but no other bucks showed themselves.
 
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Day 5

The next morning, a rain storm again kept me in the tent until after daybreak. Once the rain stopped, we glassed around camp for about 30 minutes and watched the two forkies along with a small 3x3 as they walked down the mountain side and into the timber below camp. After giving them time to clear the area, I headed off for the basin 1.5 miles off and made it there about 9 am. I glassed until 12 and could only turn up two decent 4x4’s that were another 1.5 miles off, and not worth going after at the moment.

On my way back to camp, I began to hear some voices and as I worked my way further towards camp I realized that the voices were close. I crested a small ridge and came up on them, three guys and four goats, with a fourth member of their party and four other goats already headed on up the mountain. They were headed to the same spot as the llamas, and had been hunting the area for 17 years. They also informed me that there was a semi with a trailer load of horses at the trailhead and they would likely be headed our way as well.

As I made my way back to camp a lot of scenarios played through my mind. We could hike out and head to another basin, but there was no guarantee the pressure would be any lower there. Or we could hold it out and I could get to a high point to wait for a deer to show or get pushed towards us. That evening we again glassed around camp waiting for the horses to make an appearance, but they never showed. What did show was clouds and fog with rain and low visibility. As we ate dinner, visibility became virtually nonexistent and no deer were spotted that evening. I went to bed wondering what the morning might bring.
 

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Eagle

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Day 6

The rain continued throughout the night and our single wall shelter soon became a condensation factory causing it to mist nonstop inside. Eventually it started to get light out and I glanced through the mesh to see that the visibility was still virtually zero. Regardless, it was opening morning of my first western backcountry hunt and I was going to at least have a loaded gun in my hands in case a deer wandered through camp. After a quick breakfast and more rain, I decided that as soon as I saw a break in the clouds, I would head for a high vantage point above camp to glass and wait for a buck to show himself. The forecast wasn’t promising with dropping temps and more moisture on the way, so I decided that the first good 4x4 that showed himself and that I felt good about was going to get some lead sent his way. About 7:30, I noticed the first break in the clouds and headed for the high point.

Rain turned to sleet and the wind continued to blow hard out of the south as I watched the mountainside below me. After a 30 minute barrage or rain, wind and sleet, the weather finally let up and the wind subsided. I watched as fog lifted from the valleys below and could even see spots of sunshine in the distance. I decided I would stay on this vantage point until at least 11am and shortly after this, about 9:30 I saw a deer step out of a patch of dark timber into the edge of a new growth area. I quickly realized the deer was a shooter by my standards and watched as his dark red antlers which he had no doubt recently shed of their velvet turned broadside along the timber edge. I found the buck in my crosshairs and judged him to be a little over 200 yards, and preceded to miss with my first shot. The buck jumped a short distance and stopped facing towards me in between two pines. I found an opening, aimed for 300 yards and pulled the trigger, watching the buck drop on the spot. I lost it and began shaking uncontrollably as I seem to do after every deer I shoot. I walked over to the game trail I used to access the vantage point and yelled for my dad at camp to get his blaze orange vest and head my way. I guided him to the buck to insure that I wouldn’t lose him once I got down to his level and then made my way down the slippery trail and across the broken meadow to the buck. He was larger than I had anticipated, with great backs and a good front and weak front. Not a lot of width on the inside, but he flared out nicely to end up well beyond his ears. He was a fine deer for my first Muley, and his body was as large as any whitetail I had ever killed. His coat was a beautiful light grey, after a short while admiring the buck and taking a few pictures, we quickly began the process of the breaking the buck down.

I took off my rain jacket as I began to skin the buck and got engulfed in the process, getting drenched as rain moved back in before I even realized it. After removing all the quarters, backstraps and tenderloins, I put my rain jacket back on, but it was too late as I was already beginning to shake from the cold and wet conditions. As we deboned the quarters I looked up and noticed it was snowing, and snowing hard enough that I couldn’t see the vantage point where I had shot the buck 300 yards away. Ice and snow was accumulating on my pack and the meat and my dad told me that he wasn’t going to allow me to go much longer before we had to head back to camp to warm up. The amount of shaking I was doing with a scalpel blade in hand was unacceptable from his viewpoint and I reluctantly agreed.

After deboning the last front quarter, the decision was made to not cape the deer and to just take the head off and get back to camp as quickly as possible. We made it back to camp about 2pm and climbed inside our bags to try and warm ourselves. I checked the forecast and saw that we were likely to get a short window to get out that afternoon starting about 3:30pm. Eventually, we began to warm up and the rain tapered off allowing us to break camp and get loaded up for the hike out shortly before 4pm.
 

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Eagle

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Pack Out

With heavy packs, we began on our way slowly chipping away at the 5 miles we had back to the truck. The clouds rolling in and out with the fall colors at their peak and the wet slippery conditions made the hike out an unforgettable experience. After 3 hours of steady downhill with a couple steep ascents, we were finally back, and the sense of accomplishment began to set in. I have been on many week long backpacking trips into the Rockies, but it has been a dream to take a weapon along and take an animal out his high country home. Now, at the age of 30, after 5 years of saying I was going to do it, I had finally accomplished my goal, and on a beautiful 160” mule deer that would provide my family with many great meals. The hunt was over, and I was leaving the backcountry successful, with my dad at my side; I couldn’t think of a better ending to my first western hunt, and hope to experience several more in the coming years.
 

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robby denning

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You did it!!!!
Great job and a fine buck, especially for your first muley. Thanks for the write up, great way to start the week. Looks like the Cooper did you well. What caliber?
 
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Gear Reviews

As I stated in the story, this wasn't my first rodeo with camping and hiking in the backcountry, so most of my gear is relatively dialed in. However, this was my first trip in mid September, and with that, there's a few things I will likely change for future hunts.

Henry Shires Tarp Tent, Double Rainbow:

This was my fifth year using this tent on backpacking trips, and it's always been a great shelter. It has enough room for some gear along with two adult men, one 6' 180 and the other 6'1" 200. That said, I'm not sure I'll ever take a single wall shelter along on a trip like this again. Condensation was a non issue our first two nights, but when the fog and clouds rolled in Monday evening, I knew things were likely going to get bad, and they did. My sleeping bag was fairly damp on the outside by the time Tuesday morning arrived, and had I not killed that morning, I'm not sure what we would have done as the weather got worse after we hiked out with snow over the next two days. I'll be researching my options and probably looking hard at a Hilleberg.

Western Mountaineering Alpinlite 20* bag:

This was my third year using this bag and it's still overkill for me as a warm sleeper in mild temps. Had we been out longer with the colder temps and snow that was coming, I likely would have been happy to have it, so long as I could have kept it dry. In my previous days as a tarp and bivy user, this wouldn't be as much of a concern, and I may consider going back to the tarp/bivy combo as it helps alleviate the moisture worry with a solid waterproof bivy and well pitched tarp.

Thermorest Neoair:

My sixth year with the same pad, and still no issues. This thing has been great for me, and I feel like so long as you take a little time to prepare your sleeping area and remove any rocks or sticks, you'll be in good shape with this pad. I'd estimate I've got over 80 nights on this pad, and again, never had a hole to repair.

Inov8 Roclite 295's:

These light hikers work great for me, even with a 120+lb load on the way out over 5 miles. I hate stiff soled boots and goretex as my feet sweat a lot in normal temps. That said, with the weather we had on opening day, I was wishing I had a goretex boot of some kind, and will probably look for something similar to the roclites with goretex for my next boot/shoe.

Prana Zion Stretch Pants:

I love these pants, for the price, I don't think they can be beat, and they offer a 34" inseam with a 29-30" waist, which I rarely find in hiking specific gear. I'll use these until they wear out.

Sitka Dewpoint Rain Gear:

This stuff works great for me. It kept me dry while I was waiting on a deer and had I kept it on while breaking him down, I'm sure I wouldn't have gotten hypothermic. I kept my rain pants on during the breakdown process and my prana zions were bone dry when we got back to the tent. Great rain gear for a minimalist like myself.

Cooper Excalibur Model 52 in 280 AI:

The miss was on me, not the gun. I had ranged the area earlier and just had a mental lapse at the time shooting the deer for 200 and missing low when he was at 300. This gun has been amazing for me consistently shooting 1/4 moa, very happy with this rifle.

First Lite Wool:

I was an early adopter of first lite, buying it for the first time in 2009 for whitetail hunting, and have never been disappointed with it. I used the llano ss and long sleeve, chama, allegheney, crew sock, merino gloves and beanie on this hunt and it all performed as expected.

Zeiss Victory HT 10x42 binos and Zeiss Conquest 4.5-14x44 scope:

Zeiss is great and both optics worked perfectly for me in the adverse conditions. No fogging or issues with either piece.

Vortex Razor 11-33x50 Spotter:

Worked great when I wanted to get a better look at long distance buck. For the weight, it's hard to leave in the truck, well worth the minimal weight for the extra power.

Sirui T-025x Tripod with C-10x Ballhead:

This spotter worked great with my binos (outdoorsmans adapter for them) and my spotter. It's extremely compact and weighs 28 oz with everything included, great combination for how I used my glass.

Outdoorsmans 42mm Ring Adapter:

This is a priceless piece of gear, using binoculars on a tripod is an amazing step up from holding them by hand.

Havalon Piranta Torch:

I used one blade to break down my buck, these knives are awesome and light, can't ask for much more.

Leupold RX-1200i TBR:

Great rangefinder and reliably reads out past 900 yards for me. Made it through the adverse weather conditions with no issues as well.

Anker External Battery Charger:

This thing worked as I needed it to. I was amazed I had service where we were, and of course ran my battery down faster than I had anticipated due to that. So long as I warmed it up before using it, it appeared to keep its full charge in the cold weather. I was cautious to keep it as dry as possible and had no issues.

Phoneskope:

No issues with this product, it works as advertised, just wish my phone would cooperate more when I've got the scope on max power. Focus can be an issue, but it's not the phoneskope's fault.


Stone Glacier Sky 5100:

This was my second trip with the pack, and I used it extensively during my training hikes this summer loading it up to 120 pounds. I love the compressibility of the pack and the load shelf system, and it has more than enough room for how I pack and hunt. That said, when the loads grew north of 100 pounds, I had some issues with the pack bruising my lower back where the lumbar pad attaches, and I had trouble keeping it up on my hips. Comfort is a very subjective observation, and for me, the comfort level was fine so long as I didn't get over 100 lbs, but on the pack out (easily over my 120lb training weight), there was some pain in my lower back due to hotspots and my shoulders took more of the load than I would have liked. For whatever reason, I seem to be incredibly difficult to fit a pack to, as I've had similar problems with kifaru (hip bruising mostly), so I'm unsure of what to do about it, aside from cowboying up.

Sawyer Inline Filter:

This is my sixth year using a sawyer filter and so far so good. No issues so long as I keep an eye on my water source. If I ever head into an area with only elk wallows for water sources, I'll probably take a pump, but for where I hike, this filter has worked great for a long time.

Tag BOMB:

These bags worked great. I put a deboned front and rear quarter in each of the two larger bags I took and then neck meat and backstraps along with tenderloins in the two smaller bags. I think you could get by with two of the larger bags, and one smaller bag for a good sized mule deer.

Gaia GPS App:

This app worked incredibly well. I see no reason to ever use a dedicated gps again. Even in narrow canyons and thick woods it picked up my location quickly and worked very well.
 

realunlucky

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Great write up i was just thinking about that very hunt today. Great buck and great trip spent with your dad
 
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