WYOMING Mule Deer- A Glimmer of Hope…Maybe
By Guy Eastman
Coming off the worst winter in nearly 75-years, Wyoming’s mule deer herd could be a decade or so from a full recovery—yes, it is truly that bad. With a drought-ridden mule deer herd that was already down by nearly 60% going into the devastating winter of 2023, the winter became utterly vicious well into the spring months to knock the herd numbers down another 60-70%.
To put this into perspective, essentially, where there were once 100 deer on the Wyoming landscape, only about 15 remain today.
With the initial data just starting to roll in early last spring, the state Game and Fish Commission followed up by drastically cutting tag quotas nearly statewide, and in a heavy fashion. Certainly, the right call given what we know now—a hat tip to those courageous folks. For example, in 2019 there were approximately 5,000 limited-quota buck deer tags available in Wyoming; last fall, there were fewer than 3,500 tags available with more areas to hunt. As for the region-general deer tags, in the last year Wyoming offered up just over 11,000 nonresident buck tags, while back in 2019 there were almost 17,000 buck tags available, a decrease of nearly 35%.
This year, I fully expect the state to keep mule deer buck quotas very similar to last year, a very anemic level for sure, but again the right call. Along with this, we will probably see more reduced antlerless opportunities, more shortened seasons and antler point restrictions in many general regions going forward for at least another year, possibly two.
There is, however, a possible glimmer of hope in the midst of this catastrophe. With the steep tag quota reductions, the hunter success last fall actually jumped to an all-time high—a very interesting data point, in my opinion. During the 2023 hunting season, hunter success on limited-quota buck mule deer hunts jumped to 66% on average, when the average usually hovers around 50%. Area 90, for example, saw a reduction in tag quota from 75 tags to 50 tags, all while hunter success jumped from about 50-60% to nearly 85% during the 2023 hunt. Areas 101 and 102 saw a hunter success at nearly 90%, much higher than the 70-80% we usually see in those areas.
This tells me that even though there were way fewer deer to hunt in most areas, there were still enough bucks for more hunters than usual to find in the Wyoming hills and mountains. In my opinion, this will bode well for hunters in some areas this fall. While success was up in many areas, we cannot tell much about the quality of the bucks taken. Did hunters settle for smaller bucks, knowing the winter was so bad, or did they find decent bucks to put their tag on? I don’t know the answer to that question, but I do know there looks to be some bucks left from last year that might just show some good promise for this upcoming season.
If some older bucks did manage to slip through one more year, this could be a bit better year than most might expect. A mild winter followed by a mild spring and good moisture might just be just what we ordered in the way of the beginnings of a rebound for our deer herd.
In a nutshell, the outlook for this year’s deer hunt will be much fewer deer than normal, but the possibility for a good Wyoming buck or two does still does exist. Will this be the case? Who really knows, but as long as you’re not hunting in Regions G or K—those will still be awful—there could be a few pleasant surprises out there for us this year.
Make sure you head over to our digital TagHub product to fully flesh out the details of this mule deer data before you apply. Good luck.
