North of Casper and Douglas

[MOHunter]

Going up to hunt goats in Unit 25 for the first time this year. We will probably have one member with a deer tag. Are the deer in this area located in the desert or the hills to the north end of the unit? On google earth it looks like there's a little bit of elevation at the north end of the unit. I just noticed last night that Eastmans's rates this a green (good) unit for elk. That surprised me a little as I expected it to be mostly desert terrain.

Also, if anybody has any thoughts on where to go for coyotes and prairie dogs it would be much appreciated. We hope to fill antelope tags quickly (even have a few doe tags) and then go play and scout down in 19 for elk.

 

[Colorado Cowboy]

Let me start by saying that I have never hunted this particular unit, so I don't know any details about it. But I've hunted Wyoming for over 30 years and seem to learn something new almost every time I am there. Don't be surprised to find deer where you would least expect to see them. One year I was scouting a couple of days before the goat season opened and we decided to hoof it up a very high ridge that bordered the flat plain we were going to hunt. Took our spotting scopes and set up where we could see for miles. After about an hour of looking at antelope, my buddy say to me "Look at those buck deer"! Down below us were 4 real nice bucks feeding in the bottom of a draw. All were 4x4's with 2 being real close to 170-180. We watched them feed for about 1/2 hour until they bedded down in some cover where they could see everything below them, but they never looked up.

Since that time I've really watched the draws and heavier cover a lot more and have seen more deer. Usually when we are hunting goats, its sleeping a little later and looking over the flatter country and of course seeing a lot of animals. Bottom line is there are a lot more deer in "antelope country" than most hunters think there are. Deer are night feeders, especially when there are goat hunters out in the field all day. First and last light are the times you want to be out looking for that Mulie.

 

[Roboz]

I hunted up there last year, filled all 4 of our goat tags in a couple of days. It's mostly private and almost all of the BLM is landlocked, we talked with the Wildlife officer one day for about an hour and he said they were looking into ways to get access to the thousands of acres of blm but they aren't having much luck aquiring access. I did see a couple of Deer but i wasn't out during prime deer hunting hours either. We hunted in the southern part of the unit around Casper so not sure what the northern area holds.
Good Luck to you.