HuntingNet.com Forums - Family Vacation Mule Deer Hunt

It was Last Saturday the 4th, my mom, brother, Uncle, and myself were all heading to Cody, Wyoming for our hunting trip. It was 630am eastern time and we are leaving Jacksonville 20 minutes late because of a runway holdup. We get to ATL with no time to spare as the we’re calling final boarding for the flight to STL. Luckily we landed one gate away from the new plane! We barely made it. Got to STL and waited for our 1045am mountain time flight to Cody. We took off and we here that weather is bad so we are going to pattern around Cody and hope it clears up. 2 hours later the pilot says it’s not clearing up and we head to the Bozeman airport in Montana to refuel. We land and can’t even go in the terminal because of a natural gas leak. They decide to take us back to STL. There was another flight In the evening to Cody and we were able to get on that hoping to get in. It’s 7pm now. We get there and turn around again. Now we get back to STL and find a flight to BIL. The weather has been bad all day and no flights were landing at either airport. I don’t even know why they even tried. It was a waste of time. Anyway we get on the 9 pm flight to BIL and even before the pilot left he says the weather is bad but we will try it out and the reflection in his voice was like yeah we’re not landing. We all knew and it was very frustrating even when the pilots knew were weren’t landing. Now it’s 11pm back in STL. This was the worst flight sequences I have ever been on. They added a flight early morning with the same plane back to BIL at 6am. So we all slept in the airport, or at least tried to. Finally, 730 Sunday morning we made it to BIL! Our ride understood everything and picked us up at BIL instead of COD. We were all frustrated about it all but we finally made it! We did lose a day of hunting but man it could have been worse with all the weather they were dealing with up there.

We made it to Cody and stopped for food and beer and took off to the ranch. It was cold and snow on the ground in theory is good for hunting the mountains like we would be doing. With all the weather the deer movement was actually the opposite and they weren’t moving as well as we thought they would and we learned that in a day or two of hunting. The deer literally moved a little before sunrise to about 8am. A little movement midday and then an hour or less before it was dark. The wind and snow kept them bedded down. Starting Tuesday it was warming and clearing up and we saw more deer movement then until Our last day, which was Friday. My mom, brother, and I had general deer tags and a doe tag each. My uncle had 2 doe tags. He has been going to Wyoming since 1989 and this was the first year he didn’t get drawn for a general deer tag. My uncle and I also had a cow elk tag.

Back to our first morning of hunting, which was Monday. My brother and I were dropped off at a trail that runs at the bottom of the mountain and the ranches field. About 50 yards in we seen 3 does on the hillside looked and kept moving. 20 more yards we see another 4 does, I told my brother we need to keep an eye out, there’s a buck here somewhere. Another 30 yards 3 more does and a big Mulie! I didn’t even count or anything, I instantly saw it and it was a shooter no doubt. First day and 5 minutes hunting. No way I would pass him up. I did notice some kickers he had but that was it. It took my brother a couples minutes to see him. I don’t know how but I actually had to hold his hold and show him where the buck was. He looked and was like yeah take him. I said no poop lol. I had my Remington 700 in 257 Weatherby with me. Loaded with 69 grains of H1000 and 115 Barnes TSX. I found a tree that had supplied a good shooting lane. I took a couple minutes a get my self together with walking through the snow and navigating up and down the hillside of the trail. He had no care in the world. He was looking at us and eating. Looking and eating. We knew he wasn’t going anywhere. I got my breathing under control and got my rifle settled along the tree. I found him in the scope and put the crosshairs right on his heart. I told my brother get ready. I gently squeezed the trigger and he was hit hard! I saw him jump straight up about 5 ft and then took off. My brother assured me he was hit good and won’t be going far. We walked about 30 yards to clear the slide of the hill and there he was in clear view. Now the fun began and we had to walk up the mountain/hill 150 yards. That was a horrible walk even though it wasn’t very far lol. I was dead tired but the time we got to him. Because of the mountain I decided not to take pictures there because he kept sliding so we said forget it and let him slide to the bottom where we were able to breathe and enjoy the moment once we got down. Going down was hell of a lot easier! We took some pictures at the bottom. It was awesome to shoot my biggest Mule Deer and only the 2nd Mule Deer I shot with my own reloaded ammo! Got him gutted and called for the others to come back and pick us up they thought we were playing when we radioed them that we got one down because it was so fast.

I don’t have all the pictures yet but I do have all the bucks that were shot. My mom and brother tagged out. My uncle got a doe. We didn’t see any cow elk that was not on public land or our private land. My brother and I saw 3 bull elk on the river. One was a spike, but the other 2 were big and one was a 7x7. He was a monster! To bad we didn’t have tags for bulls because they would have been smoked with a nice and easy 300 yard shot.

The trip was very productive with the weather not being great at all. 6 out of 8 deer tags were tagged and bagged. If anyone ever wants to go for Mule Deer in Wyoming, go to Cody. They are everywhere! My buck is a 7x6 non-typical with a 24” spread. Feel free to guess the score of the beauty! My mom got a nice 4x3 Mule Deer, which was her first buck ever. She was using a .243 and that round was no joke and the deer just did not move after being shot! My brother got a decent 10 pt whitetail with his 6.8 he didn’t even move. He was bedded down and he took a snow nap.