Live Hunts - Wyoming Archery Mule Deer Hunt - September 27

Live Hunts - Wyoming Archery Mule Deer Hunt - September 27 - Day 4

September 27 - Day 4
Wyoming Archery Mule Deer Hunt

Thursday A.M.
As you will remember from yesterday's update, I spent the night in my blind in order to avoid spooking any feeding deer on my walk in, in the dark. Unfortunately, just as last evening, I did not see a single deer at my blind, not even a doe. Cowboys were rounding up cattle again very close this morning, so again that might have been a factor. The blind was hidden and blended in with the landscape pretty well, so I don't think that was the problem. At any rate, I didn't see any deer.

A "from-the-woods" view of my blind situation

Thursday P.M.
This evening I decided to drop my ambitions for a real nice buck and simply try to stalk and shoot a young buck. Shouldn't be that hard, young bucks are the stupid ones, right? Wrong.

The location of my first stalk - dry and crunchy - perfect fire tinder

I'll save you all the mistake details and just give you the short version. I made 4 different stalks this evening, on a spike, a 3x1, a 2x2 and another 2x2. All of them ended in failure. The reasons? Let's see: noisy pine forest complete with dry pine cones, dead limbs, etc.; unseen deer waiting to spot me; large groups of deer (and therefore many sets of eyes); carelessness. Probably most of the mistakes could have been avoided by simply shoring up that last reason: carelessness. Sometimes I get so focused on the target animal that I forget to notice things around them, like other deer, unseen deer, etc. Several lessons learned this evening. Will try it again tomorrow evening.

A poor, long-distance photo, but the deer at the bottom
and furthest to the right is the big buck I first saw on Monday

One bit of good news is that I spotted this evening again the big buck I first saw on Day 1 of the hunt but couldn't get close enough to. He and his group of young bucks and does/fawns were feeding contentedly at the bottom of the hill (see last photo on this page). I'm going to try him again tomorrow morning. The real trick will be to anticipate which part of the half mile of woods his group will enter as they go to bed. Check back tomorrow for another update!

- Go to Day 5 of the Hunt -

Trip Notes
This hunt takes place in Region C of Wyoming, in and around the eastern side of the Bighorn Mountains. I may also do some hunting on the plains, depending on what I find in the foothills and the mountains. I'll be hunting on a mixture of National Forest and BLM land. I did some research and found this to be an area with good numbers of mule deer with some pretty nice bucks too. I'll be real pleased to take any decent 4x4. This is new country in a part of Wyoming that I've not hunted before, and that's always fun. This is primarily going to be a spot and stalk hunt, with the slight possibility of using my ICE ground blind if I find a really good trail.

Equipment
I'm shooting a Martin Jaguar bow, set at 72 lbs. Arrows are 29-inch Easton 3-60 ACC's, with Wasp 125 gr. 3-blade SST Hammer broadheads. Depending on the terrain, I'm wearing almost exclusively Predator camoflauge. I have Fall Gray, Spring Green, Fall Brown, and Evolution with me on the trip, and will probably use all of them. Predator is awesome, and particularly in the Rocky Mountain West. I've also got a new Master Guide backpack made by Crooked Horn Outfitters that I'm eager to try out.

e-mail Joshua Flournoy

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