It was a successful hunt, but not nearly the size of buck I was hoping for. We found out that the bigger bucks were still a little bit nocturnal, but the smaller bucks were starting to push does around. We had two really nice bucks jump the road on us after dark the night I killed my buck - got him right at end shoot time. They were moving down to water, and were much lower than we expected bucks to be. i think there are some bucks hanging low letting people drive by them. That was a much tougher hunt than I expected it to be. I've hunted a lot of high desert country before, but I was a little stunned at the vastness of those lower hills on the Southern side of 172 in the BLM and HMA areas. The best looking areas we found, and the better deer, were in and around the cedars up near the Red Oil Mine Field. That was some very rough, but fun country to glass and move around in. It rained about a week before we got there, and even with chains and a 4x4, some of the locals recommended not going into certain areas I was hoping to get to in the middle-to-southern areas of the zone. I will say, the people in Thermopolis love their deer, and love helping out with info if you treat them right. oh, and never saw another deer hunter at all in the zone while we were there.
FYI......antelope bucks are plenty in this zone. Good lord they are plenty. Not sure if they moved in after any general seasons, but they were everywhere once we started seeing them. lots in the 14-15" range, with a few bigger.
