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My 12 daughter was able to harvest her first deer opening morning and my 16 year old son was able to harvest his 4th buck on the first day he was able to hunt due to school and a football game.

In 2013 I remember watching a TV show about Antelope hunting in Wyoming. I vividly remember wanting to go Antelope hunting really badly, but didn’t know how or when I could afford that type of out of state hunt. After a little research I discovered I could buy preference points without having to buy an out of state license. That’s when I recognized I could afford to start accumulating points until I could afford to go out of state and draw a good tag. Fast forward to the spring of 2018 when I finally decided to cash in my 5 points for what Eastman’s calls a “Blue Chip” Unit. Upon receiving the notification I had drawn the tag I immediately called a friend (Cliffton)in Utah to assist me with the hunt. We had talked about hunting together in Wyoming for years. This would finally be the year we could hunt together. For this hunt I was planning on taking my bow, my Ruger Precision and Custom long range Savage Striker pistol. I had spent numerous trips to the range with all three and was very prepared to take whatever type of shot that presented itself. Approximately 3 weeks prior to leaving for my hunt I was having lunch with my boss. While at lunch I reminded him I would be leaving for vacation in 3 weeks. After further discussion we realized one of my key staff members would be gone at the same time. With another key staff member already out on Military leave we both could not be gone at the same time. Knowing my hunt would not be end for several more weeks I decided to cancel the original week of vacation and extend it two weeks later. This extension would cause me to spend additional driving time. The extension would also cut a few days off of my hunting. Upon arriving in Wyoming I would only have 3 days to hunt before having to return home. I would now leave for a family vacation to San Diego & Disney Land on Friday October 28th. We spent 5 amazing days in California with the family! The only issue now is we would be driving home on Tuesday October 2nd. The minute we arrived home I had to immediately leave for Wyoming! We left Disney Land at 7am. We arrived in Phoenix at 2pm and I left for Wyoming within 15 minutes. I knew I wouldn’t make it to Wyoming, but I wanted to make it as far as possible. The plan was to meet Clifton in Salt Lake City the next day and leave for Wyoming ASAP! After a long day of driving I made it to Beaver Utah by 1 am. After a short 5 hour nap I continued my drive to my Clifton’s house. Upon arrival at his house Clifton informed me we would not be able to leave until he and his wife finished laying sod in their front yard. He told me to take a nap inside his house and we would leave as soon as he was finished. Of course I couldn’t let him work without my help so after a few hours of laying sod for the first time we were finally on the last leg to Wyoming. We arrived to Wyoming around 9pm that night. We had a fantastic steak and then an even better night’s rest. With excitement in the air it was difficult to get to sleep, but with 2 days of driving behind me I settled in for a short, but well needed rest. The next day was a beautiful sunny, blue sky Wyoming morning. We had a quick breakfast, filled up the truck and headed into the vast Wyoming prairie to start the hunt. If you have never been to Wyoming I can assure you that filling a buck and 2 doe tags was not going to be a problem. The real challenge would be to find a quality buck that was worthy of waiting 5 years. My buddy had hunted this unit on several different occasions so we had a good idea where to go and what size goat we would peruse. Within 30 seconds of leaving town we started seeing Bucks in my unit. That started the very long day of looking over 200 plus bucks. I know some of you might feel 200 is an exaggeration, but let me assure you, it’s not! We actually counted! I’ve never seen so many Antelope bucks in my life! It was crazy! The day ended with us seeing several great bucks, but nothing worth ending my hunt so soon. I stated earlier that I had planned on taking my bow on this hunt. Unfortunately with having to leave my house so soon after arriving home from Disney Land I forgot my bow. This turned out to be a HUGE mistake. Throughout this hunt we saw numerous Pope & Young Bucks either right next to the road or within a short easy stock. If I could do anything over on this hunt I would have brought my bow and shot my buck and both does with my bow. The second day started much the same as the first day. We immediately started seeing bucks. On this day we looked at the opposite side of the unit to hopefully find a great buck. After looking over 100 bucks by noon we still hadn’t seen anything worth taking. We did see several great Muley Bucks lounging in private alfalfa fields. I’ve never seen such huge bucks with zero fear of humans. It was incredible to see. Nearing the end of the day we located a monster shooter buck in a valley without roads. This buck was definitely over 80 inches and was Amazing! The problem is the buck was on a nearby reservation. The buck was close to public land so we decided to come back to him in the morning to hopefully find him on public. With about 30 minutes left of shooting light we located another great buck. This buck had really tall horns, but was weak on the prongs. He was also on public land and was only 300 yards off the road. We spent a few minutes carefully looking over this buck with the spotting scope, but had a very hard time judging him. The real problem with this buck is we kept thinking about the monster buck from 30 minutes earlier. If we hadn’t seen the monster buck we would have 100% shot this buck. We decided to pass and started driving back to the hotel. Of course we were both uneasy with our decision and began seriously second guessing our decision. This ultimately led me to turn around and attempt to harvest this buck. We arrived a few minutes to late and just in time to watch the buck walk onto private land. This turned out to be the only mistake I had made on this trip. With only 1 more day to hunt I should have shot this buck! The drive back to the hotel that night had a strange somber feeling to it. With only the following day left to hunt we were both a little uneasy about what we would find the next day. Harvesting a buck in this unit or any unit in Wyoming is not hard. What we were finding out is harvesting a Boone and Crocket style Buck was becoming almost impossible! While eating an amazing Prime Rib steak I recognized that I had made a huge mistake and should have shot the tall buck! Unfortunately I let “score” get in the way of “fun”. We ended the night with a solid plan to go after the Reservation buck first thing in the morning and then go after the tall buck if that didn’t work. At first light we were both staring at the Reservation buck. He was chasing does about 200 yards on the wrong side of the fence. We felt he might cross onto public, but with only 10 hours left to hunt we decided to find the tall buck. About 30 minutes later we located the tall buck, but he was still on private land, but was slowly making his way to public land. We decided to look into some other area’s for an hour and come back to see if he had made his way onto public land. We drove away and found numerous more bucks. As it had been the previous 2 days all the bucks were nice, but not worth tagging. It was now noon and my heart was beginning to feel that all too familiar feeling of Dred and regret! We returned an hour later to find the tall buck. Thankfully we found him quickly and on public land. The problem was he was steadily walking towards private land. We quickly attempted to get close, but as it was the previous night he made it onto private land before we could make a move. At this time I was heartbroken! With only 6 hours left to hunt I knew my chances of getting this buck or any nice buck was seriously slim! We decided to look at some completely different country for the next few hours. This ended up being another huge mistake, because this was the only country we didn’t see any antelope in. It was beautiful country, just void of any living creatures. We returned to are of the tall buck at 2pm. Surprisingly we located him bedded about 100 yards onto public land. We quickly made plans and began our stalk. The stalk was going perfectly, until a doe popped up in the general area the buck was bedded. The doe ran off, but we never saw the buck go with her. We continued and got within 100 yards of the last location of the bedded buck. Unfortunately after a few minutes we realized the buck was gone. We never saw him leave and we could only surmise he was bedded close to the doe and she took him with her. It was now 3:30 on my last day to hunt. My buddy could easily tell I was beyond stressed out! I couldn’t believe I had come to Wyoming and would not get a quality buck! I knew I could kill a smaller buck just about anywhere in the unit, but that’s not what I wanted. I wanted a mature buck! At this time I had already made up my mind that I was not going to shoot any buck just to fill a tag. If it wasn’t mature and had the look I wanted I wasn’t going to tag out. Shortly after this realization I suddenly remembered the two bucks in the valley without any roads. The area was only a few minutes away so we decided to try and locate them. Within a few minutes we were fortunate to locate the bucks within 100 yards of where we found them a few days earlier. The bucks were only 650 yards away. I could have easily taken a shot with my Ruger Precision 6.5 creedmoor, but I decided I wanted to end the day and hunt with a challenge. Therefore I decided to take my long range pistol on the stalk. I was very comfortable taking a shot at 400 yards. Thankfully the terrain had enough small draws that enabled us to stay out of view for most of the hunt. We had a plan to get to a particular hill that would hopefully get us within 300 yards. Well, our plan worked a little too well. Upon popping our heads up out of the draw I immediately located the bucks and they immediately located me. That’s because were where within 150 yards. We spent the next 30 seconds attempting to the video camera working and getting me set up for the shot. This proved very difficult to do quietly and ultimately didn’t work. The bucks slightly spooked and ran out to 230 yards. At this time my Clifton told me to forget about the video and shoot when I was ready. I had a pretty solid rest, but not great. I took the shot as soon as the buck stopped. Once I recovered from the initial recoil of the gun I was able to see dirt fly about 3 feet in front of the buck. Clifton immediately said those dreaded words “You Missed”. I was not shocked, because my rest was not really solid. I was hugely dissatisfied with myself and wished I hadn’t taken the shot. The rest of the Antelope ran out to 300 yards and looked back at us for about 30 seconds. I could have taken another shot, but without seeing the second buck in the group I wanted to make sure I missed before attempting another shot. We gathered out gear and hiked up to the area the buck was standing. While hiking up I was filled with emotions. I was sad, mad and disappointed in myself! I was shocked I had just missed my last opportunity at a buck an hour before dark on my last day to hunt! While walking up I tried to keep it together, but with only an hour left to hunt I knew the hunt was over! I walked 5 more steps and I caught a glimpse of something white in the grass ahead of me. That’s when all my sadness and disappointment turned to hopefulness and excitement. Another 5 steps and I could see those beautiful black horns lying on the ground. To say I was excited and elated would be a huge understatement! I had just filled my tag with a really nice Antelope Buck with a pistol. The feeling was Awesome! After taking about 100 pictures we cut up the buck and began the mile hike back to the truck. We headed back to town for dinner and ice and began the long drive back to Salt Lake City. The rest of the trip ended much like the beginning of the trip. A lot of driving! We arrived in Salt Lake about 11pm that night. I continued my drive for another few hours until I reached Beaver again. I awoke the next day to rain and snow. The rain and snow continued throughout the rest of my drive home. At one point I was in a mini blizzard just north of Kanab. The rain continued all the way through phoenix. This trip taught me one very important lesson. There is nothing wrong with working hard to find a huge animal, but the search for a monster did take away a little of the fun. Ultimately I made a few mistakes on this hunt, but the knowledge and lessons learned were invaluable! Thank you very much to all those who assisted me on this adventure!!!!

So I gathered up some buddies and we jumped on the Wyoming bandwagon this year! 5 tags between 4 guys-- we filled 4 in 24 hours and then I opted out of filling my doe tag because I wasn't going to be able to get the meat home. Originally I was supposed to drive up from Texas (12+ hours), link up with our Denver dude and then get the NC boys who were flying in. Unfortunately for me I couldn't break of the 5-6 days I had hoped from work. So I had Fri afternoon to Sunday afternoon and I booked a hasty ticket and as a group we split a rental car (truck- more on that later). Here's how things went down: Thursday had some things come up at work that resulted in a much later than preferred ride to the airport to fly from Dallas to Denver. Still made the flight, guns arrived with no issues and had plenty of time to go pick up the rental car and drive to my buddy's house in Denver to spend the night before driving up to WY on Friday. Until I got to the Budget rental car center at DIA... 60+ people at 11pm and only 3 folks checking cars out. So when I got to the window at 2am... they no longer had full size trucks... but they did have a 2018 Tacoma TRD so I snagged it, which ended up being a great vehicle on and off road. Get to Dave's at 3am and we drink beers and BS until who knows when. He has to work Friday and I have to get the other two from the airport. Friday: I pick up our NC boys from the airport and we head north towards the promised land of WY!! Except it is raining, foggy and generally crap weather, not the 50-60 degrees and sun that were forecast. But we make it into our hunting unit and head towards a chunk of public land to check our zero since we all were now 6,000+ ft above where we confirmed our data. Upon arriving at said chunk of land... there is a chunky pronghorn buck standing off the road about 500 yards and he dips over a rise. I had compared my actual data from Texas (hot, low altitude) to the WY forecasted data (cold, high altitude) and the ballistic calc had told me there wasn't going much difference (less than 1/4 moa out to 600y). Since this was for sure a shooter buck and I had a short hunt we bailed out and made the stalk. I got up to the rise and over the top, bedded down, was the buck and a group of does. I ranged at 289 yards, my rifle is zero'd at 250. I keep inching up to get my bipod up and rear rest set. The does saw me and they slowly stood and began to walk down and away from me. The buck stood, slightly quartered too and looking at the does that were now trotting. I held just a hair high and into the cross wind. The 7RUM barked and the 145gr LRX buried itself just in front of his shoulder and exited just behind his offside shoulder. He ran maybe 25 yards and expired!! We were on the board having been in the state of Wyoming for about an hour! We got him gutted and back to the truck and proceeded to get the other two rifles double checked for zero and then we headed off to some other spots we had google earth'd. At last light Dave texted and said he was headed up from Denver. We checked a last spot and found a nice herd on the border of public/private. We marked them and headed back towards camp... until we saw a really great buck dip into a small draw off the road. We bailed out again and began a several hundred yard stalk up to the draw. As the terrain thinned out we knew he was going to be just beneath us. Boom- horns! There he was- the next man up got settled as we saw the buck turn broadside and trot off. We heard him alarm wheeze or whistle (whatever you want to call it) and we knew the gig was up. He made a brief stop and got flattened by my friend, shooting a family heirloom .270. We admired his buck which, to us uninitiated pronghorn hunters seemed to be a good bit larger than the ones we had seen and definitely bigger than my buck. Well, he just got scored and before drying he netted 80 6/8"!!! Saturday picked up where Friday left off- We got on several bucks early but couldn't get good stalks set up. Finally, I glassed up a super tall buck who was narrow and unmistakeable. After a great (and long stalk) Dave connected on this superb goat. The length on this goat was awesome and he grossed out in the mid 70s! We were feeling good about ourselves but we knew we needed another buck. We were having a great time but we all wanted the guys who had traveled across country to fill their tags!! I headed out with my buddy while Dave skinned his buck. We found a great wide, forward leaning buck but he spooked across onto private before we could make a play. Then- as we drove over a crest, tucked behind a hillside, almost invisible from the road was a buck bedded with does. Knowing that this had been a recipe for success so far we stopped. Checked our topo and made a plan. I got to crawl in with my buddy as he navigated to this unseen herd. I expected us to pop up about 300 yards off... but he got to within 80 yards before cresting the hill!! The antelope were now milling around feeding and headed off to our right. At 156 yards my buddy got the shot profile he was looking for and absolutely stoned the buck. Making us 4/4 in less than 24 hours of hunting!! Just an amazing trip overall and something that I think we see ourselves doing again the future!!

First of thanks to Nathan for all of his help and to those here who offered up some advice. We had an awesome time on this hunt even though James tagged out in the first 20 minutes of light on opening morning my younger son Darren also had a tag and missed a few shots he had a blast hearing all the bugles and seeing a lot of elk. I put together a video of the hunt unfortunately I couldn’t get the shot.

I've seen a lot of deer bedded in Ocotillo over the years! Probably a good spot, especially if there is water near by.

Well here is the short and sweet version of my wife's first elk hunt. She drew a limited opportunity "Any Elk" HAM hunt. I knew it had the potential to be a tough hunt so contacted my friend Shane Koury to help us out. We got on a monster bull early on day one that none of us had ever seen before, but he wasn't in a shootable location. As we moved in on him, he and his cows busted us. We were determined that he would be our target bull and set about to pursue him the rest of the hunt. The first day and a half were great. He was a very silent bull and bugled very little, which made it tough to find and trail him in a flat, cedar heavy unit. Late on day two the weather started moving in and for the next few days we were pelted by rain, snow, sleet, hail, and heavy wind with little to no breaks in the weather. This weather effectively killed the rut in our unit. The bugling slowed to just one bugle before light by day two. By day four the bulls were back in bachelor groups and there was zero rut activity or behavior. On day five Shane and I did an evaluation of my wife's mood. We agreed that we (mostly me) were putting our standards and expectation of bull size/class on her and encouraged her to be more open with us about what she was looking for in the hunt. It was clear she really just wanted to shoot a mature bull, and we didn't want to kill her enthusiasm with the continued grind for our target bull. After we "adjusted" our expectations and plans, we quickly came across this guy in a bachelor group of three bulls. Kursty made a good 235 yard shot with the muzzleloader. We heard the loud unmistakable thump of the bullet making impact, but he ran off into the thick cedars. After a short time we began tracking him. No blood, but because of all the moisture, a blind man could have tracked his deep prints in the mud. After bumping him a couple times we agreed to back out and give him four hours. It was probably about 40 degrees at the time so we weren't too concerned about meat spoilage. We could tell he was struggling to stay ahead of us and was done, but needed some time. Those four hours drove my wife to a near nervous breakdown. After picking up the trail where we left off that morning, we found he had bedded up not far from where we left him. Kursty put one last shot in him at 21 yards and he was done. This was a fantastic first elk hunt for my wife that had a little bit of everything, highs and lows, grinding it out, crazy weather, a little rut activity, etc. I am super happy for her and can't wait to get her out in the field again.

He goes by many names .. We English speaking folks know him as the Alpine ibex. In Latin, he’s known as the grandfather of all of the goats; Capra Ibex. In his native ranges he goes by several monikers; le Bouquetin the French speaking regions of the Alps of southeast France and western Switzerland, lo Stambecco in the Italian Alps, der AlpenSteinböck in the German, Austrian and eastern Swiss Alps, and Kozerog in Slovenia where he lives in the Julian Alps, the southern arm of Alps proper. To many hunters, he’s regarded as the King of the Alps; Der König der Alpen. I am in this crowd of hunters. He’s a special animal that most hunters are afforded just one chance at, if ever at all, in their lifetime. Permits are extremely limited and very hard to come by. He’s been immortalized in his native range in statues, sculptures, paintings, and writings. Hunters for millennia have looked up from the valley floors on clear days at the highest snow and glacier capped haunts the Alps have and pondered the chance to have just one opportunity to chase the long horned goats that live in those absolute vertical reaches of the incredible range they’d gaze upwards at. I had my opportunity in western Switzerland this past week. I’m humbled to have had the opportunity to receive this rare permit at a time that coincided with my chance to finish my Capra Super 20 (20 different goat species from around the world) I’m thankful, humbled and grateful. It was a hunt I’ll never forget. The Alps gifted me one of its Kings and he’ll forever hold a spot of the highest regard in my life and in my memories from here on out. Having finished my Capra Super 20, I have so many people to thank. Each of you all know who you are. Know that you’re all incredibly gracious good people and I’m a better man for having had the pleasure of you in my life. Thank you all.

My 14 yr old daughter and 12 yr old son got Jr cow elk tags for 6A/5BS. My sons friend also got drawn, so we had 3 tags. Due to a busy swim and soccer schedule I could only pull off one scouting trip. Needless to say, I was gonna put the boots to the ground and hopefully fill a tag or two. Friday morning was beautiful, heard some late rut bugles and then started hearing shots off in the distance through the forest. I knew we were in the right spot. Nothing turned up so we went to get a hot lunch put on by the AES at the St Joseph’s jr elk camp. Met some great folks even went out with a mentor who, bless his heart tried to put us on some elk but couldn’t locate any due to all the pressure. I did find a beautiful arrowhead, that made my day, elk or no elk. Saturday morning came early and we had pulled over to look at a map when my son said, “dad, are those elk crossing the road?” I look up and catch 2 run by. We park and head toward the direction they are going. I take my 2 kids and my buddy and his son split up because we have 2 different bulls bugling. I head east, he heads west. I get to a small clearing and decide we should sit under a couple of trees and see what happens. My daughter says “ I’m hungry, can I eat my PB&J?” After she eats it, she says I see an elk and it’s walking towards us, I put my binos up to verify and say get the monopod and gun. I range it at 100yds and it stops behind a tree, I asked her to wait for it to turn broadside, of course she says “ I know dad”. It continues to zig and zig between the trees getting closer. I range it again at 84 yds, I get excited and say shoot whenever you’re ready, once again she says, “stop it dad, I know”. As soon as I put the binos up, the crack of the 270wsm goes off. I look frantically to see where it went, I get scared because I can’t find it. I see something move to the left behind a tree, clearly it’s been hit and wobbly. I point it out to her for one last finishing shot. Gun goes off again and it drops. The 3 H’s happened immediately after ( Hootin, Howlering and High-5’s). On the radio to our buddies to get the truck, started the gutless method and had it in the truck within a couple of hours. Got it to the butcher and she was able to pick her meat choices. My son and his friend did not fill their tag but had a fantastic time at the elk camp, shooting BB guns and being outside despite the rain, wind and muddy conditions.

Those are great Bucks! Great job dad and congrats to the kids!!!!

Tikka website should be able to answer those questions I would imagine. Can't go wrong with a Tikka though, everyone I have ever shot has done so really well. By far the most accurate out of the box rifle available with butter smooth actions.

Oh man, knew I couldn't be the only one thinking along these lines, haha!

With 4 points you can draw some very good December tags as a non resident. Shoot me a message and I can help point you in the right direction

I thought by saying I was kidding that you in fact knew I was kidding.. guess not

I like unit 31. It’s got remote places and easy access places. There is every kind of habitat from desert floor to tall pines. Almost every inch is coues country. There is some private land but plenty of public. You might even get a November hunt as a third or fourth choice but I admittedly have not looked at that recently. I drew it as a NR one year. If you are from WY then 27/28 might suit you. Same story as 31 but much bigger country. Some real boomers have come out of there every single year, but there is also lots of low density habitat. I would avoid 6,8,21-23,24b,30a/b and 33. The lower number units have lower densities of deer although the trophy potential is the same, 30ab have really challenging access and 33 has about 8 billion tags. Others will disagree.

Thanks guys it was a thousand dreams come true for him and for me. Funny moment, right before the shot. He says “Dad, get ready for some noise ...”

Between Colorado and Montana (hoping that gets me points with the sarcastic crowd hahaha) southwestern corner.

Dude if you like the pizza in Manhattan you need to go to Queens or Brooklyn! My grandparents lived in Flushing, Queens and I will remember the Gloria Pizza slices for the rest of my days! Their shop was right by the entrance to the 7 train and we would always stop for a slice on the way into or back from the City.

I use the LEM Snack Stick and Summer Sausage kits. $20.00 for 20# of finished product. Includes casings, seasoning and cure. I use a pork picnic for adding about 30% pork to the mix. I add extra heat and a few more spices, shoot into tubes and into they smoker they go. All my Javi meat including straps wind up as snack sticks. They are actually good, not just edible.

This might set a record for the longest time taken to sell a Outdoorsmans Pan head lol. Usually they are gone immediately, especially at such a great price. Glad to see it finally sold

In Flagstaff on their way to the valley is Casey's Processing.

Im assuming you meant to type because of thousands of tags there's not many deer rather than too many deer. You're gonna sit here and tell me because units like 36 have literally thousands of tags a year that's not effecting deer populations? But a few cats are killing them all? Stop living in your fantasy land. Lions don't kill nearly as many deer as the orange army every year. The unit the guys that have hounds hunt around here and have let females go the last 10 years has had the deer population sky rocket the last ten years. You can go see 100+ deer in a day if you want. But don't let a good story get in the way of facts.

On top of what Flatlander and 25-06 said, leaving the females increases your chance of killing a big male down the road. If you know where some females are, you will eventually cut a good tom track as he comes in looking for a date. A tom is not much different than a lot of us, always on the lookout for food and a date? Kill the females, and you lose your male magnets.

As hunters, I think we should first be conservationists. Even Aldo Leopold said that it was a mistake to eradicate wolves and that when we did part of the mountain would die with them. To say that every lion should be killed is ignorant and to believe that if it happened that our hills would suddenly become the garden of eden is also fallacy. Predators should be managed like every other big game animal. So for guys who are good at killing lions and do so at close range where evidence of sex is apparent, it makes sense to me that they would let females walk. But for us opportunists looking through glass from long distance, that's not realistic. The lions seem to be self sustaining pretty well so I would say the model works and good on the houndsmen who self police and don't routinely kill females.

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