\u201cLet a Deer Walk,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0which encouraged hunters to turn in their deer tags as raffle tickets in a prize drawing. \u00a0<\/p>\nThis year, he said he\u2019s ready to try to get a deer. But he\u2019ll hold out for a monster buck or go home empty-handed.<\/p>\n
“We\u2019re going\u00a0to be pretty selective,\u201d\u00a0he said. “For me, the quality of bucks is looking better, but the quantity still seems to be fairly low.”<\/p>\n
Key keeps an eye on mule deer wintering in the low country near La Barge. During the winter before last, \u201cWe didn\u2019t see any bucks in the 200-inch range,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis past winter, we saw a half-dozen 190-to-200-inch mule deer bucks,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He was referencing the Boone and Crockett Club (B&C) measuring system for scoring mule deer antlers. Measurements of girth and point length are taken at several places on the antlers, as well as the width of the rack\u2019s span.<\/p>\n
Those numbers are then crunched to come up with a final score in inches. Bucks in the 190 to 200-inch range are gigantic enough to put a grin on many hunters\u2019 faces.<\/p>\n
Not Seeing Much Around\u00a0Riverton<\/p>\n
David Mossburg of Riverton told Cowboy State Daily that he and his family have plenty of hunting tags ready to go \u2014 elk, pronghorn and deer.<\/p>\n
They have access to a relative\u2019s property, which includes lush river bottom habitat.<\/p>\n
He said they\u2019ve done some preseason scouting and set up trail cameras on the property but haven\u2019t exactly been overwhelmed by what they\u2019ve seen.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe haven\u2019t seen hardly any deer, and the six or seven deer we\u2019ve seen have been white-tailed deer (instead of mule deer),\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Muley Fanatic Foundation Is Hopeful<\/p>\n
Joey Faigl, president\/CEO and co-founder of the Muley Fanatic Foundation, told Cowboy State Daily that he\u2019s hopeful this hunting season will be a good\u00a0one.<\/p>\n
Those deer that survived the huge winterkill had less competition for food once spring finally arrived, he said. The winters since also have been relatively mild.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve seen a lot of vegetation improvement,\u201d and the health of mule deer herds hinges on good nutrition, he said.<\/p>\n
Game and Fish is offering ample mule deer hunting opportunities across the state, he added.<\/p>\n
However, while it\u2019s legal to shoot white-tailed deer does in numerous places, plentiful mule deer doe tags probably won\u2019t be coming back any time soon, Faigl said.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s a good thing, because female deer are vital to rebuilding the herds, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs long as Game and Fish continue to be conservative about issuing female mule deer tags,\u201d things will continue to get better, he said.<\/p>\n
Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The winter of 2022-2023 took such a ghastly toll on some of Wyoming\u2019s premier mule deer herds\u00a0that\u00a0some hunters…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":128334,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[79,201],"class_list":{"0":"post-128333","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128333"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128333\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/128334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Wyoming](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Hunting-Muley-2-9.2.25.jpeg\")
Wyoming hunters might dream of finding gigantic mule deer bucks this fall, but mule deer numbers are down. (Courtesy Julie Argyle\/Wild Love Images)Fewer Deer, Better Bucks<\/p>\n