In the spring of 1968, I read a story in Fur-Fish-Game about the great mule deer herds in Wyoming. I had never hunted mule deer before but really wanted to give it a try. Today you can get on the internet and find 500 outfitters in 30 minutes, but not in 1968.
The story said to call the chamber of commerce in Sheridan. They sent me a list of ranches that had hunting, one of which was the Kendrick Cattle Company with over 100,000 acres. They charged $25 per hunter and a $5 camp fee. I asked my hunting buddy Richard to go along so we could split the gas and food. I called information and found the phone number for Wyoming Game & Fish Dept, then found out the non-resident deer license was $30, today it is $312. The lady at Kendrick Cattle Company said to mail a check for $27.50 each which was good for a week of hunting. So our hunt was going to cost us $57.50 each plus gasoline, we both worked at the same place and made $66 a week, so we started saving our money.
The season came in October the first, so we put in for vacation at work and started making plans. Richard had a long Chevy van, so we built bunk beds in the back. It was a 1300 mile trip from our home in Indiana and we didn’t plan to stop except for gas, we had food packed for a week and heated chili on a Coleman stove in the back of the van while driving. We drove straight thru and arrived at the ranch in 22 hours. This was before good interstates and high speed limits; today you can drive it in 18 hours. The ranch foreman told us where to camp and said if you don’t cross a fence you will be on Kendrick land.
We were in the foothills of the Big Horn Mountains north east of Sheridan, the only trees were some cottonwoods in the bottoms, and the hills had low brush and sage about knee high. As soon as we got out of the truck we could smell the sage, it was sure different from Indiana and I couldn’t wait to go hunting the next morning. We watched the hills until dark and saw a few mule deer moving up high. We didn’t sleep much and was up two hours before daylight fixing coffee and breakfast.
Richard decided to go east up over the top and I would go south down the valley then go east over the top. I was hunting with a Remington model 788 in .243 which was about the cheapest rifle you could buy in those days. I had it sighted in for 200 yards. This was not a legal gun in Indiana for deer which was shotgun slugs only. After about an hour of walking, I jumped two doe about 100 yards ahead of me. I couldn’t believe how big their ears were and they ran in a stiff four legged bounce. They ran to the top of the hill, then stopped and looked back, as if to say, “What was that?” Doe were not legal just fork antlered bucks. By noon I had seen 10 deer, mostly doe and a couple of small bucks. I also saw several coyotes, which were something new for an Indiana boy, now day’s coyotes are thick in Indiana.
Richard and I met back at camp for lunch. Richard had seen about a dozen deer and one large buck that he couldn’t get a shot at. We hunted the rest of that day but didn’t see any good bucks.
Next morning I was up early and headed to a deep valley between two tall hills where I had seen several deer the first day. I decided to stay in the bottom low brush and move very slow a step at a time, using my squirrel hunting skills. About an hour after daylight I saw movement about half way up the hill. Looking thru my 4 power scope showed 6 bucks running together in a bachelor group. All had nice antlers, 3×3, 4×3 about 20 inches wide, they were out of range but moving slowly to the top of the hill. When they went over the top, I took off at a fast pace and crawled the last few yards to peak into the next valley. I finally spotted them halfway up the next hill side looking back at me. They were all broad side one on top of the other; I thought it was about 200 yards, so I decided to shoot. The buck on top looked to be the biggest and when the crosshairs settled I touched the trigger. Down went the second buck in line below the one I was shooting at. Darn what happened, the sight looked good, how I could have been off that much.
When I finally reached the buck, which had been hit in the spine, I looked back and decided it was more like 400 yards. We didn’t have range finders in those days and this Indiana boy couldn’t judge distance in the clear mountain air. But I was happy with my first mule deer buck, a 3×3 about 20 inches wide.
I field dressed the buck and then set down on a rock to take in the moment, then a large magpie landed on the gut pile about 6 feet away. The magpie looked at me as if to say, “Mind if I have a bite” and started pecking away. Then a coyote howled in the distance, which kind of put the hair up on the back of my neck. I suddenly realized I was a mile from camp and the van could not get into this area. So I started dragging the 150 pound mule deer. I would drag about an hour then stop and rest. I was 26 years old and in good shape but this was going to be a heck of a pull back to camp. 
No cell phone in those days to call for help, they probably wouldn’t have worked anyway on this remote ranch. Finally I got to the last hilltop and I could see the van and camp about a quarter of a mile away and there was Richard. I got up on the tallest point on a rock and starting yelling to get Richard’s attention but the wind was wrong and he never looked up, so I fired a shot in the air. That did it, he looked up and saw me, an hour later we had the buck hung in a cotton wood tree. I had pulled all the hair off of one back leg.
Richard had taken a shot at a nice buck running but missed, he planned to be back in the same area the next morning. One buck was the limit so I decided to scout some new country farther south. I found a big valley with lots of large rocks on the hillside and set down to rest. Something was moving in the rocks, so I looked thru the 4 power scope, and then a bobcat jumped up on top of the boulder. What a beautiful sight, I had never seen a bobcat before, then another cat popped up on the other side. They looked to be about 150 yards away and fur prices were high at that time, so I put the crosshairs on the one on the rock and bang down he went. The other one vanished in the rocks, so I jacked another round in and waited, about 20 minutes later a head peeked out of the rocks, then showed it left shoulder. That was all I needed and bang down went the second spotted cat. They were prime furs from the cold western mountains even in Oct. I spent about an hour carefully skinning each one.
When I got back to camp I remembered an old barn back down the road coming in and drove down and got two boards. With a hatchet and knife I soon had shaped up some fur stretchers and hung them up to dry. Richard had spotted a big buck but it was laying down on a high point and he couldn’t get any closer for a shot. He left it lying down and came in for lunch and was going back to him again. I decided to tag along in case he needed help. When we got close, Richard crawled ahead to take a peek and pretty soon I heard Richard’s .270 rifle go off. When I got to the top and looked over, Richard had a hold of the buck antlers. This was a really nice buck, 4×4 and 28 inches wide. After 4 hours we finally got it back to camp. We decided we had to have something to haul these deer out with next year. Richard started making drawings of a carrier with one 20 inch bicycle wheel in the middle using a man on each end.
The last morning Richard decided to stay in camp and rest up and start packing, I went hunting again and shot a coyote about an hour from camp. I set down and skinned it out and on the way back to camp another coyote got up and ran up the hillside, I set down got a rest on my knees and the coy dog stopped at the top. That was his last move and I added another fur to the pile. When we got back to Indiana a fur buyer bought the fur and I paid for the whole trip.
We continued to hunt this ranch off and on over the next 9 years and we always got our bucks. In 1978 my oldest son Brad turned 14 which was legal youth age for non-residents to hunt. Also Richard’s son turned 14, so we sent for the licenses and made plans for the boy’s first deer hunt. Richard and I decided to just be guides, besides I only had one rifle. I spent a lot of time with Brad on the range until he was able to hit a 5 inch target at 200 yards. We had a little trouble getting the boys out of school but finally convinced them it would be an educational experience.
When we got to the ranch the boys were all excited and full of questions. They had never seen prairie dogs, coyotes or porcupines before. We saw several deer the first day out but no decent bucks. I told Brad to aim at all the doe and small bucks to get use to getting on them faster. Finally on the evening of the second day we crawled up to a deep canyon and peeked over to see a nice buck and a doe. I took off my coat and folded it up for a rest, distance was about 150 yards and straight down, which worried me a little, I was not sure what the bullet would do at that angle. Brad was lying flat with the coat for a rest but I could see he was shaking with excitement or buck fever. He pushed off the safety but I said, “No just aim for awhile”. The buck wasn’t going anywhere; they couldn’t smell us and were just eating on the sage brush, so I made him wait until he was not shaking anymore.
Finally I said, “Ease off the safety, take a deep breath, and then let part of it out, then gently touch the trigger. Bang and the buck hunched up and ran into some brush. I knew it was a hit but was not sure how good, so we waited about 20 minutes before going down. The doe went out the other side and over the hill but no buck with her so I knew it was still in the brush. When we got close, I heard the buck get up and finally saw it standing in the thick cover. Brad couldn’t find it at first but spotted it and put another round in for the finish. It was a nice 4×3 with no brow tines, like most mule deer. I helped him field dress the buck and by that time the sun was going down and the coyotes had started to howl. Brad said, “Do they smell the blood”? I said, “Yes but they won’t come in unless we leave it here”. I decided to leave Brad with the deer and go back for the cart and the others. I left him with a flashlight and said to flash it when you hear us coming. I could see some fear in his eyes but he wasn’t going to let those coyotes get his deer. It took me about 45 minutes to get to camp and another 45 to return with the cart and the guys. When we got close, I could see Brad flashing the light and he was sure glad to see us. We loaded the buck on the aluminum frame cart with the one wheel in the center, which had handles on each end. We found a cattle trail that led right back to camp and soon had the buck hung in a tree. Richard should have gotten a patent on that cart because a few years later they were selling them at Bass Pro shops.
I had that buck mounted for Brad and it still hangs in his home 36 years later. Brad has a 9 year old son of his own now and took him deer hunting for the first time last season. I took my second son Cory to Wyoming in 1981 and he got his first deer. And that’s how the family legacy of hunting works. From my grandfather, to my father, to me, to my children and my grandchildren and great grand children.
-Russ Porter
