Hunting forecast for BHC

While weather conditions leading up to the 15th of October will no doubt play a role, other key indicators suggest hunters are likely to have plenty of good opportunities to harvest big game in Big Horn County this fall.

Sam Stephens, the Wyoming Game and Fish wildlife biologist based in the Greybull area, said the elk population is doing well and that the deer population is also trending in the right direction -- the exception being along river bottoms where conditions have worsened due to the emerging threat of EHD.

In a recent interview, he shared his perspective on all the major hunting seasons in Big Horn County.

Elk

Stephens said elk numbers “are down relative to what they were five years ago,” but that it’s by design as the G&F is trying to meet herd unit objectives. “For about a decade we were exceeding those objectives,” Stephens said. “The last two years, we’ve actually brought most of these hunt areas down to their management objectives.  The only exception to that would be Area 39, where the population is still exceeding objectives.

“But in Areas 40 and 45, for sure, I think people are going to find fewer elk than what they experienced a few years ago.  Area 41 is still kind of to be determined. Guys have been having quite a bit of success during the archery season and early rifle seasons, but we don’t have the numbers we had a few years ago. We’ve adjusted quotas (in response); there aren’t as many any elk or antlerless elk tags in those units as we had a few years ago.”

As for the weather conditions, Stephens said the last three or four Septembers have been very mild, “but we got a little bit of weather this September, which I think really helped hunters,” with several nice bulls being harvested.

“Overall, it’s been excessively hot and dry this summer and fall already. We’ve really lacked the precipitation that we need up on the mountain. So, finding that residual forage that’s going to help hunters locate game is going to be critical this season.  Grass production just was not what it was last year or certainly in 2023.

Deer

Deer hunters are likely to find more opportunities in the high country than along river bottoms.

“We’ve had several good years of buck recruitment in the Paintrock herd – Hunt Areas 41, 46 and 47,” Stephens said. “We don’t know yet what this year’s recruitment looks like but thus far, we’re finding a lot of deer up on top ... a lot of fawns and younger bucks ... so hopefully that trend continues to improve.

“North of the highway in the North Big Horn herd unit, it’s a little tougher to tell, although I have been getting reports from archery hunters who say they’re seeing more deer than they have in the previous two years.”

At the lower elevations, a deer population already in crisis due to chronic wasting disease (CWD) has been further impacted by a recent outbreak of epizootic hemorrhagic disease (EHD), which is common in very dry years.

“We’ve seen a real decline in all these non-migratory residential segments of these herds, like along the Greybull River, the lower Big Horn River, lower Shell and lower Nowood,” Stephens said. 

G&F responded by significantly reducing doe licenses as well as nonresident quotas, but it hasn’t had much of an effect.

“We hear a lot of complaints about that, and I think the perception of the hunting public is that our hunting seasons are driving the decline, but that’s just not the case ... it’s the disease,” Stephens said.  “We’ve seen a pretty direct correlation between increased CWD prevalence starting around 2016 and population decline.  As we went from 5% prevalence in 2017 to now 60% prevalence in that herd, we’ve seen the population drop by about 75%.”

EHD has further stressed the animals.  The disease is caused by a midge and results in the rupturing of internal organs, with white-tailed deer being most susceptible.

“We’ve seen a pretty severe outbreak of that across the entire Big Horn Basin in the last two months so we’re kind of waiting to hear what folks are going to find this year,” Stephens said. “We suspect they’re going to find way fewer white-tailed deer, especially along the lower Shell Creek and the lower Nowood.”

Antelope

Stephens said the health of the Carter Mountain herd unit, Areas 78, 81 and 82, is on the upswing.

“We’ve seen a couple decent years of fawn recruitment and are still within the objective range,” he said. “I don’t know that hunters will notice a huge population swing one way or the other, but I think things are pretty stable out there.”

This year, the G&F made available 25 muzzle-loader only hunting licenses for Area 79.  That season started Oct. 1. “There are quite a few trophy bucks in 79 so we’ll be curious to see how that goes,” Stephens said.

Birds

Stephens said he and other wildlife managers “don’t have a great idea yet of what bird abundance will be like this year. The few coveys we’ve seen have been significantly smaller. Last year was an incredible upland year.  It seems like we’ve got good grouse numbers again up in the mountains, but I don’t know that that’s going to translate over to chukars and huns.

“Until we get some snow that concentrates those birds a little bit — and with huns, you have to remember that a lot of those birds actually migrate in, they summer quite a way from where they winter — I don’t think we’ll have a good handle on that until probably late October.”