Alan is the deputy director for Wyoming Travel & Tourism. My writings are about my personal experiences in Wyoming. To say he is a little biased towards Wyoming is an understatement. Still, everyone can have the experiences told here. Just get out there and enjoy the Wyoming outdoors.
Devils Tower, the nation’s first national monument… it is a stunning site. It was to be our backdrop on our Wyoming deer hunt in 2005. Between Devils Tower and the Wyoming Black Hills, it is hard to come by a more beautiful setting for any type of trip.Every year at Thanksgiving, if I have a deer tag left, I can always go to the Black Hills of Wyoming and hunt. The season is later than all the rest in the state and it is still open for those holding general deer tags.
My wife’s parents both grew up in the heart of Wyoming’s Black Hills. (Her dad in Upton and her mom in Newcastle.) The stories of their younger years are quite good because the two towns were, and still are, bitter sports rivalries. My father-in-law was quite the athlete back in his day in Upton and took pride in whipping Newcastle’s teams in every sport. My mother-in-law was a cheerleader for Newcastle. So she saw him perform all the time. Her 8 Clap cheer is still pretty good.
Enough of that… back to the deer hunt.
A good friend and tourism board member was able to allow us access to his family’s beautiful ranch to hunt at the last minute. His brother runs the ranch and was very gracious. I was extremely excited. The deer should just be finishing the rut and allow us an opportunity at a good deer.
We made the trip up and stayed the night with my wife’s grandmother in Upton. This lady is pretty remarkable. At 80 plus years of age, she still gets out and works her own flower garden and hangs her Christmas lights. She gets a little help from the great-grandkids every now and then, but she stays on top of things.
We got up early the next day and made it up to the ranch. We saw lots of deer on the ride up. Whitetails, muleys… they were everywhere. It was hard not to be extremely optimistic. We topped the hill up by the ranch, made our way up past the ranch house and looked out across the natural grass hay fields and deer were everywhere. I don’t think I have ever seen more deer in my life in one place. We looked out over acres and acres of land and there were pockets of deer on all of it… all muleys.
Off in the distance, I saw one decent buck and thought I better take a closer look at him. We drove up the two track and I got a good look at him, a decent 3x4. I thought about it… then he went over a hill. We drove up to look over the hill and there he was, only 75 yards away. I decided this was the deer I wanted.
I got my rifle scope on his neck so the field dressing would be less messy… pulled the trigger and the buck dropped. Tag filled. We drove up to where the buck was laying, he ended up right beside the two track road. My father-in-law says, “Well there’s his antler over there.” Sure enough, I had blown off his right antler. Haven’t lived that one down yet. Even had to hold the antler on for pictures.
Then I remembered, before leaving for the hunt, my rifle had dropped and bumped on the ground. My shot had hit a good 4-6 inches higher than where I aimed. Needless to say I was bummed. But I still had a good deer down, now it was George’s turn.
I stayed and dressed the buck while he continued to hunt until it got dark. He drove back up a few minutes after I finished and we loaded the buck, took a few pics and headed back to Upton for the night.
We got the deer hung and visited with family for a while that night, had a good dinner and got a good night sleep so we could finish our hunt the next morning.
We had picked up another passenger the next morning, my wife’s cousin’s boy… if that makes sense. He and his brother are born hunters. They love it like I do and are great kids. Our new passenger had not shot a deer on his annual trip with his dad, brother and friends; so he piled in with us and we took off.
We got to the ranch at the perfect time. As we drove in, we spotted a deer walking in a field close to the road. It was a small whitetail buck, exactly what my father-in-law was looking for. He got out, got on him and dropped him. It was right at first light. We got the deer dressed and loaded into the truck and headed on up the ranch to see if we could find one for our new passenger.
We drove around for a while, looking over small bucks in the distance. Enjoyed the beautiful morning and then found a decent muley our new passenger decided he wanted. Four shots and one semi-interesting chase later, he had his deer. It just wouldn’t go down. We don’t know if it was a tough deer or his poor shooting that led to this little caper, but it was interesting. The deer came to rest on a small hill, which if he had made it 10 more feet would have put him at the bottom of a 200 foot canyon, straight down. He got his buck cleaned and loaded in the truck and we were off for home.
One very interesting side note to this hunt is the fact that the agency working for our tourism office had a production crew up at Devils Tower shooting a TV commercial the very weekend we were hunting. I was able to take my father-in-law by and meet some of the folks working on the commercial and watch them shoot a little of it.
It is the best commercial we have ever done, in my humble opinion. It really grabs you and stirs the emotions, all while branding Wyoming as Forever West.
As for the hunt, it was really special. It was the first successful deer hunt I was able to go on with my father-in-law. We hunted right next to Devils Tower. We hunted his old stomping grounds. Places he tells me about all the time. Places he hunted with his dad. Places he created special memories. He is proud of his home and he should be. It is a special place.
But the next year... the 2006 hunt… that was even more special.
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