Wyoming 04 Bill's Story

The 2004 Wyoming Hunt
First posted November 3, 2004 Last updated December 6, 2010

Bill's Story

I'll let David get out our first day before I set that record straight.

Day 2. I bounced David to someone else because I wanted to do something my way, without having to think about anyone else. The ranch can be thought of as a low plateau or simply a valley. Nearly all of it empties into Bird Gulch, which begins as nothing near our campsite and flows 3 miles ENE, zigs a little over a mile SW, and zags another 3 miles ESE, growing in depth until it is some 400 feet deep with some steep, ledgey sides on its northern edge. As you might guess, saying "I'm going to Bird Gulch" doesn't say much.

Last year the lower portion received little attention from us, except that I put in a day that intrigued me. A road reaches the rim about 2 miles from where our property ends, and Craig really likes what he sees there and upstream. I had seen some nice stuff below and wanted to explore it now. On morning two Craig and I drove to that point and split up. Near the end of our part of the gulch, where the sides are steep, erosion has cut a few gullies back into the plateau, halving the steepness of the slope and creating, from another viewpoint, promontories of the plateau. The gullies are up to 400 yards wide and long, and the promontories about the same. I walked east from the car and approached the near lip of the first of the largest gullies. I glassed across and saw 5 bucks feeding on the other side hill, and sat down to inspect them and use my spotting scope. The plateau was a touch higher two promontories farther, so I could see the top of the next gully's side hill, where I saw another 5 bucks feeding, some 800 yards away. I shinned forward a bit for a better view, and sat. The near 5 had no shooters; the sun was rising beyond and interfered, but the farther 5 also were too small for me, but what a beginning!

A good fork in the near group fed out along a narrow shelf of the ledge that is common here, a neat sight. He spent some time staring off into the distance, probably contemplating his buckness. Something caused the near 5 to run down and up gully. That caused a previously unseen buck, a mature but too-small 4x4, below me on my side, 125 yards away, to step forward on an outcrop to rubberneck. After awhile he returned to his bed under the ledge, and I noticed there a large fork with a white face, an old-timer on the way down. I was tempted to take the fork, and would have if he'd been a little larger, little wider, little thicker.

Having 5 on one hill, 5 on another, and a limited view of this close bedding ledge, I hoped that there would be more bucks here I couldn't yet see, so I backed off and got a closer sit that showed me a bit more of the area surrounding the ledge. I still couldn't see much, by intervening and by my tight angle to the ledge, but I was now at 110 yards and should be able to see anything that left, if briefly.

The fork walked out from the minimum shelter of the rock and out of sight, the other buck occasionally glancing over to where he'd gone (so I knew he remained nearby). The deer on the far side trooped down to a lower level of the promontory point and fed and bedded in the sage atop a marvelous ledge complex that had scattered aspens and shady holes and boulders- the intrigueing feature that first drew me back to this part of the gulch and that I'd not been able to investigate last year.

So I just stayed put, to see what more might show up and to keep an eye on my near ledge with the hoped-for mystery buck. This ledge's bucks were larger than those on the side banks, so I expected mysteryboy to be a trophy. This is why I wanted to be without David (or anyone else)- my original plan had me walking down in the gullies, exploring the lower ledges, etc. Now I was spending several hours on top, just a short walk from the beginning of my hunt, doing nothing and in shooting distance of only the near ledge. With a partner I would have likely stayed with Plan A or somehow kept him involved, rather than boringly plopping on my butt to just observe and let the action play out.

During the next six or so hours the far bucks, with some does, dropped off the far edge of the promontory and were probably the deer I saw later on the flats of the creek bottom. A nice 4x4 came around the promontory I was on, preceded by a trio of coyotes; I think he was herding them, chasing them away. Another 4x4 appeared on the other sidehill of my gully and fed. In general, at 11:00, deer came out again to browse.

But not my near boys, the objects of my affections. While the sage came alive again with deer, my close buck remained abed, only moving when he couldn't stand the sun any longer. The ledge had a good bed in it but its SSW direction left it completely open to the sun. My guy crawled into a tiny crack in it; all I could see was the white line of his butt.

Clouds came in and it sprinkled lightly for a short time. Craig had been worried about rain and didn't want to get stuck way out here in the mud so we'd agreed to meet at the truck if things looked serious. So I figured that I'd better make something happen before I ran out of time. I made my way to a vantage that gave me a better look at my own sidehill, hoping to get another look at the old fork (I was still undecided on him) and perhaps at my mystery buck. Nothing new, so it was time to force the issue. Then I looked down and right, toward the creek, and saw a group of another 7 bucks! They weren't shooters either but I waited until they fed around the corner westward, not wanting to alert everything in the area; so far I'd had zero impact. When they were gone, and with a rain beginning, I stood up and caught the attention of my near buck. He looked at me for perhaps 2 seconds, then was gone in a flash around the ledge and out of sight up-gully. I can't swear that I could have shot him if I wanted to, he left that quickly. But no fork appeared, nor mystery buck. So, with the rain increasing, I dropped down below the ledge and hunted along under it. Never saw a thing, have no idea where the old fork went nor why what I suppose to be a "bachelor group" would split up. It's true that I couldn't see into all of the nooks and crannies (you leave my grandma out of this!), but I'd think the one escape and my appearance would
have chased out anything about.

I made my way up the gully, finally stopping to put on rain gear, and out. I'm naming this gully "Box Canyon" because of the cornered ledges it has; a look at its right angles on the map and you'll accept my title. I radioed Craig, who didn't fear this small rain but we met up anyway and left (he hadn't initially liked my idea of spending the entire day on this hunt). It was about 3:00 now, and I didn't want to begin anything new in my playground, still didn't want to disturb it. As far as I know, I only spooked the near buck and the one that had come out on the other side of the gully.

So ended my second hunt. The next installment has me in the same area for more.

Day 3. David has taken his buck, so he'll be in camp; I need not worry about him. Craig wants to look for that larger deer that David mentioned late and off-handedly, so I have my Bronco to myself. I want to return to the Bird Gulch cliffs. Our previous drives to that end of the ranch have ended a mile and a half from our eastern boundary but the map shows that the main road continues along the plateau and beyond. I was as yet undecided whether to stick with the tried & true, walking half a mile before reaching my indents/promontories, or go on beyond zebra. While I drove, first time behind the wheel, in the lightening morning I found that I'd not checked my map and GPS often enough and seemed to have missed the cutoff. So it was decided- take the new route.

I parked just beyond where I saw our boundary fence heading down and across the Gulch. Now west of me was the last of the indents, which in this case is more a gulf. From the fence to the nearest promontory tip is most of a mile , not the couple-few hundred yards of my little indents. I walked from the car along the fence, trying to appear a fence post since I was in view of much of the gulf, until I was just dropping down into the gulf and so could see to the bottom of it all. I was still a couple hundred yards short of where the fence took its right-angle turn to cross the Gulch.

I sat and brought out the spotting scope. I had a clear view of the whole gulf, save what was in and behind the minor gullies and ridgelets. There were cows on top of the promontory, and a number of does on its edge and upper sides; over the course of the morning they all fed across the top and out into the plateau of the main ranch. One young 4x4, the one in photo above, bedded early smack-dab in the middle of the far hillside, fully exposed to both me and the morning sun behind me.

Other than those, there was not much activity. The pair of coyotes in the other zoom photo, some does near the bottom of the promontory, and a group of does that came up from under me, spooking when they came in view.

Today's weather was clear, sunny, warm. At about 9:30 I was finished with my sit spot, wanted to walk around the edge to get a different view of the gulf, get a better look into the creases, etc. As I walked up to the top of the ranch plateau I decided that I might as well go to the car and bring it forward rather than leaving it east and having to trek far at the end of the day. So I drove to the part of the road closest to the middle of the gulf, parked, walked back to the edge. Saw nothing new, went around to the western rim of the gulf opposite my first sit.

I sat there for a few hours in the serviceberry bushes, enjoying the sunshine. At some point I discovered that a foursome of bucks had materialized out of nowhere and were now in the shade of the lone close-packed trio of aspens in the middle of the bowl. None were shooters, but it shows how well tiny erosions or bumps can hide deer. And I think back to yesterday when, even when other deer got up for a mid-day snack, the more mature bucks under the near ledge stayed put- there could have been a dozen monsters in this gulf that I'd never see.

I took some zoom pics of them. Took an hour nap. Saw not much else. (I'd done some peering at the other side of the canyon, way far away, without much real interest. There were deer and coyotes over there, too. At one point here my brain thought it caught a flash of movement in the middle of the bowl. I brought up my binocs, saw a lone large boulder in the middle of the nothing. But under the boulder was one of those wind-pockets that deer love so much, with sunward a bit of a bank with sagebrush casting a shadow on the wind-pocket. I saw nothing in what I could see of the pocket, nor the rest of my time there, but it would be a great spot- shady, on the top of its little ridgelet so with a view of anything approaching, nothing but sage for hundreds of yards, facing the creek so all but unseeable from the high edges surrounding the gulf.

In the early afternoon I got up and crossed the promontory against which I'd been sitting, the last promontory on our ranch and the one on whose side I'd seen the far five bucks the day before. I approached the head of its indent into the plateau, had barely gotten into it and could see little yet of its sides, and saw a buck stand and run some 125 yards away. It had been bedded (I guess) near the top. I think there was a little fold in the hillside between us, not a smooth hillside I could see all of; it appeared to me somewhat of a corner, around which he disappeared.

But, it took but a glance during the 5 steps he took before disappearing, trotting toward the other side of the promontory from which I'd just come, to tell that he was too small for me. But I glassed through the intervening sagebrush behind him and saw the head of another buck, one with obvious mass, long tines, and horn hanging out beyond the ears! This one arose and also trotted left, but at a lower elevation so that I saw only head and backline and had no shot. Thinking that they had gone around that corner and that there was there a flat face to the hillside, I hustled to my right, hoping to be able to look around that corner. Nope, I couldn't see a thing; but I did see a raghorn elk get up from the same spot!

So I then ran back to my left and across the top of the promontory toward where I'd been sitting earlier. I looked right, along the edge of the promontory, then down, seeing a coyote in the gulf, then left - bucks! Way off to my left, far from where the deer crossed the promontory to my right, I saw three bucks, at the base of the 40-foot drop-off from the top, just coming to an outthrust of the promontory. They stopped there, just steps from being out of sight around the corner, and looked back. The lead buck was small but I could see the width of the second, so I threw down my daypack, plopped my rifle over it, and looked through the scope at the dirt in front of me- I wasn't down off the edge far enough to be able to see down. I sat up, ripped my rangefinder from it's pocket on the daypack, ranged the distance at 353 yards, dropped the rangefinder, and scuttled forward with my daypack and rifle. Now I was in a shootable position. The face of the clifflet was nice flat rock; the large buck was standing right in front of it. The small lead buck started around the corner and I knew I had no time. I held about 3 inches below my bucks back, fired. No effect! I cycled, paid hard attention to my crosshairs, fired. It seemed forever before I heard the thunk, after I saw him jump forward. He made only the one leap before tumbling down the hill 15 yards, coming to rest behind a bush from me but I could see one hoof dangling up in the air, unmoving.

I smoked a butt, waited to calm down, retreived my rangefinder, ranged from my shot to the rock face as 340 yards. The 4 bucks in the shade of the tree, some 600 yards away, were on their feet and staring. I made my way along the edge until I found a way down, and approached the buck. I saw antlers first and said aloud,"I hit the wrong one!" Moving closer I saw the mass and width, and learned for the first time that I had the correct buck but that he had weak fronts that I'd not seen before, invisible through the sage at first sight and not looked at in the rush to shoot at he was preparing to move around the cliff corner. This was a true case of ground shrinkage- he was 3 or 4 inches narrower than I'd estimated, although that would have made him 29 or 30 inches wide, his mass, although good and noticeably better than the rest of the bucks I'd seen, was not as heavy as I'd expected, and of course there were those fronts, weak although not crabbed.

I went up to where he'd been standing, to try to determine where my first shot had gone. I found no sign but must conclude that it went low and into the dirt; otherwise it would have hit the flat rock face immediately behind him, which should have spattered back and made him jump. I saw where his one leap had been: there were two boulders that formed a V that he needed to jump up and through, but he didn't have it in him- there was blood on both sides of the V where he'd slammed into the boulders, initiating his tumble.

The 165-gr Partition from my .308 FAT entered right where I expected: 10 inches below point of aim (so 5 inches from the bottom of the brisket), just holing the points of both elbows, probably (I didn't get inside, just quartered) a perfect heart shot. On reflection I should have aimed a touch higher, for a lung/heart shot; it's likely that even the too-low first would have done the job.

I took a bunch of pics and then rolled up my sleeves to begin the work. What a view, looking out across the gulf at the opposite side of Bird Gulch and downstream at the Sierra Madres to the east! David had commented on how long it took him to do his animal so I timed myself, working steadily but not rushing- one hour. I've definitely slowed down in my old age. I carry quarter bags in my daypack so that I can do this work immediately, rather than having to wait until I return with my large backpack, perhaps overnight or etc; that would allow me to hang my bags or whatever. During this job I finally broke into my water bottle; my single bottle of coffee is usually enough to take me through an entire day but the effort and heat made the water welcome. Ask Craig how many bottles he goes through in a normal hunting day.

I had no saw so left the horns on the carcass, placed my meat in the shade of a sage, packed up my stuff and headed to the top of the plateau, carrying one bag of leg in my hand. Up top I left all of my load and hiked out to the car, where I popped a nice cold Miller fom Ted's small cooler, and drove the 2-track back to the promontory rim. I put on my main pack, returned to the kill site, packed up the quarters, and sawed off the antlers. For the first time I dehided the antlers right there- so much easier! That'll be a new tradition. Took the last slug from the water bottle, and hiked up to the Bronco where I popped another cool one. As I headed back to camp I pushed in the Willie Nelson tape; the first song up sang, "Turn out the lights, the party's over." It's a nice buck, and my largest typical yet, but less than we're hoping to (eventually) find on the ranch. It grosses 157:3 and netted a neat 155. 26" outside width, no eye-guards.

Day 5(?) I spent little time hunting antelope, a half-day half-heartedly looking things over and a day and a half scouting/hunting. My previously described car troubles and Ted's absconding stole the two days I intended to seriously hunt. The winding willow pastures on Dick Mowry's ranch, where I pinned such hopes, held far less this year. The expanses of BLM sage held fewer and skittish animals. Ted and I saw only average antelope, perhaps in the 13-14" range. I'd brought my antelope decoy, hoping for some rutting fun, but never had
a chance to really test it. I used it thrice, without catching any attention, but each time I was too far away. My public bucks seemed to ignore challengers over 100 yds away although the ones on Charlie Jaure's place would defend a much larger area. Once I used my decoy as a stalking horse but had to pull up far short at a boundary fence, so I'm not sure that it worked (but I think it should).

I spent my last hunting evening sitting on Indian Rocks watching four groups on adjoining private property, hoping they'd feed over. No such luck but I did disturb a hawk in the cliffs, who yelled at me with a raspy call- I never would have guessed that that sound was from a hawk. He flew off of his nest when I got too close, and maintained wide circles to check if I'd left. While climbing to the Rocks, topping a somewhat lonely hill, I noticed the flora change from the ground-hugging, sparse sagebrush to tall, thick sage and [serviceberry]. I thought that this would be a great place for some wise old buck to hole up- no one would be looking for deer on this single outpost. No whopper leapt out but a small fork did rise from his bed near the top. I didn't spook him out, just gently nudged him. The thing is, when I left that
evening I did it by walking around the crown, just to explore, and found him again 3/4 aroung the citadel! He'd not bounded off over the plain to the creek bottom or foothill aspens, just snuck around and bedded again! Something to think about. (Along the same lines, Charlie spoke of a big old buck that, upon being jumped, make 2 bounds and drop to the ground, leaving the hunter glassing off through the sage while the deer stayed down nearly under his feet.) When we hunted Charlie's ranch last year, sans antelope tags, we ignored and seriously undercounted the 'lope population. We figured that there would only be a few big bucks there, so Ted and I applied for the other area, leaving those few for the more avid Craig and Paul (not to mention, I wanted to cement relations with the two ranchers I dealt with in the other area). Were we ever wrong and stupid! Charlie's ranch holds more antelope than you can shoot a stick at, and relatively unspooky ones at that! We all experienced bucks thinking we were challengers for some doe's affections; they'd stalk at us and
bark at us. Ted had one that wouldn't move away; Ted got closer and closer, perhaps to 25 yards- he finally drew his Casull, in case things got nasty. Next year I'll apply for the ranch, with the other area as choice 2.

Bill relates about the Bronco breaking down on the way back to camp one nite, with some details filled in by David:

This occurred in 2004, after you and Paul left. It was after dark, driving back to camp, just our side of McCarty Ranch; 10+ miles from camp. Motor just died; I had a sleeping bag in the car for just such an emergency. Next morning, I borrowed Grant's cell phone, called AAA. Tow truck arr. 9:45 next morn. The AAA regs don't apply to breaking down off pavement, but the guy towed me anyway. Guess around Rawlins, most of the towing is off pavement. Paid $60 for the off-road part of the tow, gave a $20 tip.
Fixed and back to camp by 5:20 PM.

No notes in journal about thoughts or reactions of Ted & Craig. I'd phoned Trails West, and also left msg on Gene's machine, prob soon after I arrived at service station, in case boys came into town. Gene dropped by station at 1. Offered ride to camp if car not done that day. No journal note about him arranging any msg to camp.