Anybody Hunt Gray Lodge?

[Wiszard]

I hunted Gray Lodge about 16-17 years ago and it was shotgun only. We saw only one live buck and one that was a fresh kill down in a creek bottom that was near one of the boundary fences (probably poached and waiting to be picked up). Just curious if anyone has hunted this area recently. We came back empty handed by the way.

Steve
"I bet you wish your nose was a d!ck so you could use it to f*ck butts" -MacGruber

 

[6x7]

I seen a lot of bucks there but that was always on the pheasant opener with guys and dogs pushing them from every direction.

 

[downhill]

It's been a long time sence I hunted it too, about 10 years ago. It's a very tuff hunt and the conditions were miserable with the heat (over a 100 every day that year), mesquitos and every other bug and critter that lives out there crawling on you. When I hunted it I think it was an August hunt still. There is some big bucks and some strange stag like racks out there but they are hard to find during the hunt. Lots and lots of walking as it's mainly all walk in area. You jump deer in the tules and thick ditches but it's really hard to get a look at them before they were gone. They don't move that much that time of year so stand hunting wasn't much good either. I was lucky and on the last day of the hunt I was able to get a weird racked buck. He was a 7x5 plus had eyeguards that were about 7 to 9" long. Looked alot like a whitetail rack. Wasn't real wide maybe 16" wide or high maybe 12 to 14" but was pretty unique and I wasn't about to pass him as tuff as the hunt was. Missed one other stag buck (tuff shooting with shotgun only) and passed on some smaller type bucks. Seen a glimpse of one bigger type buck but couldn't get a shot. I have not put in for it sence and don't really ever care to hunt it again etiher. If anyone ever draws it and needs some info I'll be glad to help them out, but beware it is a low % type hunt on bucks and even most of the guys that decide to try and kill a doe (either sex hunt)can't find them if they don't know the area well. Most get fed up and leave if they don't knnow what to expect.

 

[Wiszard]

Downhill- That assessment is spot on regarding the bugs, heat and the deer getting in the think stuff the moment they see you. Very, very frustrating. I don't think I'll ever go back either. From what I remember it was pretty flat as well with rice fields as well. Kinda weire....like 'Nam. Weird!

Steve
"I bet you wish your nose was a d!ck so you could use it to f*ck butts" -MacGruber

 

[downhill]

Wiszard,

Yep, lots of rice surrounding it (the refuge). Lots of flooded ground as well as they are usually flooding up for the ducks and geese that will be heading in and that stay year round. Matter of fact that's where I got mine was out on one of those little islands in the middle of the ponds. You have to do a lot of wading so I was wearing old tennis shoes to hunt in. Waders were way to hot... Long walks out to the islands in some deep water and sinking in the mud but at least I hit one of them that had a buck. Many of them didn't...

 

[Wiszard]

I dont remember any islands big enough to hold or support deer. You mean the deer would get out to these islands to hold up? Smart little buggers! How big are the islands?

Steve
"I bet you wish your nose was a d!ck so you could use it to f*ck butts" -MacGruber

 

[downhill]

Wiszard,
They are more like small tule patches that are out of the water. Leke where the duck hunters make their blinds at out in the middle of the ponds. It's been awhile so maybe they don't have them anymore?

 

[Wiszard]

I remember smaller islands like that as well. I just don't see how or why the deer would prefer that cover other than solidarity but still seems odd. Oh well. Thanks for the info. I will probably never go back.

Steve
I got put in time out for a bad signature! Sorry Founder...

 

[highsierra]

A buddy of mine had that tag 2 years ago and killed a descent forky off one of the tule islands. He grew up in the area and says that's where to concentrate your efforts on that hunt.

 

[CAelknuts]

I haven't hunted Gray Lodge, but my duck club is only about a mile or so to the northwest of the refuge, and south of Little Dry Creek/Upper Butte Basin WA. I can say from 34 years of firsthand experience that most of the deer on our place fregquent thick tule stands. We can go a long time without seeing any nice bucks, and as soon as the Butte Sink floods, we find them on high mounds that we have all over our property. I'm often surprised at how many deer show up when the water gets deep and they have to leave their sanctuaries.

 

[CAelknuts]

this was a timely topic, as I just returned home from 2 days of hunting at my duck club. Yesterday afternoon, I saw the nicest blacktail buck I've seen in at leat 5 years, probably a bit longer than that. We were pulling into one of our ponds down in the willows, and at first I didn't see this buck. He was laying on a small island, and by small I mean like 20 feet wide and about 60 feet long, and when I was putting out decoys, he finally stood up and trotted away. He was a heavy 4x4 with a spread I think was a bit over 20". The little island he was on is out in a totally flooded area, and he had to swim to get there. Nobody has hunted that spot for about a week, so he was out there because he wanted to be there, no other reason. Our property isn't pressured at all, so he wasn't chased out there, but was there choice.

We saw another 5 or 6 deer while pheasant hunting, and they were all in heavy cover, and half of them were on little mounds that sat up higher than the surrounding ground. Every single one of them had to run through standing water to depart. Just thought I'd pass these observations along, as this is how these deer live.

Tule elk? How about Tule deer???

 

[sageadvice]

LAST EDITED ON Dec-12-10 AT 12:06PM (MST)[p]My neighbor and good friend took his best muley buck in a long time on a island patch in Wyoming not far from where you hunt Steve. He had hunted a LE area for many years, before it became tuff to draw, and his group always would make small drives of the brushy patches that were sometimes still above lake level when Pathfinder Res. was high. The year he took his Dandy, the lake was way low and they had to walk a very long ways across the baked mud flats just to get to the easy to miss hundred and fifty yard by 30 yard little strip of a slight nob with no water in sight. Sure enough, when they got to the end of the "island", a big old buck busted out and was making tracks across the flat in a determined attempt to escape. That didn't work out so well for the long tined 5X5 but made my neighbor a very pleased and happy camper!

Joey