Western Wyoming’s big buck country sees slowest hunt in 30 years – WyoFile

ALPINEGary Fralicks’ calm demeanor turned into a frenzy within an hour of a steady stream of severed heads passing through his checkpoint on the last Saturday of the deer hunting season.

Wyoming Game and Fish Department biologist and colleague Kelsie Hayes, who lives in Thayne, examined one ungulate dead head after another. The red-shirted duo was stationed at Grays River Road, where it emerges from the Wyoming and Salt River mountain ranges. Fralick knows his place well: This fall marked his 30th straight season at the historic check station.

The mountains rising above the Fralicks post make a lot of money, but 2023 was a little different.

“It’s definitely the slowest hunt since 1993,” Fralik said during a lull in checking the heads of bull elk and mule deer.

The numbers tell the story. The Grays River is recognized and widely promoted as a destination hunt for trophy-class mule deer. During a typical fall, the number of bucks killed by more than a hundred hunters past the historic Grays River check station was 120 in 2022. This fall? A total of $31 mule deadheads checked.

This represents a 74% reduction, Fralik said.

In some special hunting grounds the decline was even deeper. Last fall, Fralik and colleagues examined 100 hunter-killed mule deer in Unit 144, which covers the northern Wyoming Range. This year, only 17 people left the same zone and it decreased by 83%.

This complete accident was predictable. The winter of 2022-23 was a killer for mule deer and pronghorn in the adjacent Green River Basin of Wyoming like no biologist has ever seen. About three out of four adult pronghorns died, and mule deer mortality rates were almost as bad: 70% mortality and 60% for bucks. Almost all birds born in 2022 of both species perished.

Fralick, of course, knew going into the checkpoint in 2023 that he would likely see less of one of his favorite things: big bucks. One measure of an Aquarius is the spread of its horns, and a buck with 24 or more wide horns is quite large.

Fralik said that over the past 34 years, about 40% of the bucks checked at his station have hit the two-foot or wider mark. Crazy data point he said.

Fralick measured antler buckets up to 36 wide from the Wyoming ridge. It’s a safe bet to call it really big money.

Breeders and biologists measured antlers at the Grays River check station. according to Wyoming Wildlife Magazine A Game and Fish Department publication, the station on the outskirts of the Alps is the longest-running station in all of Wyoming, and potentially the entire western United States, dating back to 1929. In the early years, it was designed to prevent cattle rustling. magazine reported, in addition to making sure big game hunters follow the rules.

Fralick is as much a part of that history as anyone.

Many of the hunters the biologist met long ago remember him from past stops at the checkpoint. He keeps a photo book full of big bucks on the back door of his green Game and Fish pickup, encouraging passersby to take a gander. A group of Oregon hunters checking three elk and one deer did just that by searching through pictures of their dead heads from 2018 and 2019.

Fralicks has also seen big fluctuations in deer populations and hunter success in the three decades he’s been stationed along the Grays River. According to him, like the winter of 2016-17, recovery from the current crash will take longer than in the past. Wyomingians are trying to help the herd recover, although the strategies the state has chosen under duress have little scientific support, such as killing more mountain lions. Hunters are also trying to help by giving up their tags, although this may not have any effect on the deer population.

The flock’s trajectory is dictated by chick rearing and the availability of surviving birds, Fralik said. It is not based on dollars at all.

Fralik asked many hunters if they had seen him engage in nonsense. A group of Oregon hunters saw perhaps 50 more. We saw many twins, one man reported.

Fralick and Hayes were encouraged. Whether the big bucks make a quick comeback largely depends on what Mother Nature has in store for these young ungulates in the coming months and years.

If we survive at least two years of high winters, Fralick said, we’ll start to see an uptick.