This is my 1st time on this forum, so go easy on me. I drew Area 42 antelope lic. & Reg D deer lic. I have a ranch, near Rock River, to hunt antelope, but not much opportunity for deer. So, I thought I would give public lands in the Snowy Range and/or west of Encampment a try for deer, as they are reasonably close driving distance from the ranch and I thought they would give me the best shot at drawing a tag. If anyone has any knowledge of this area(for deer)and can point me in the right direction would sure appreciate your input. I will be traveling with my 5th wheel.

This weekend a friend of mine did some scouting on the west side of the snowy's and saw good numbers of deer the upper end off most drainages will hold some bucks, note that we did have a very hard winter in that area with record snow fall so the numbers will be down overall.
there is a lot of timber in those areas ( at least till the beetle kill starts coming down or the fires start) so glass early and late in the day.

gotlost- Thanks for reply. So, where should I park my 5th whl? I note Saratoga has an RV Park, which appears to be about 30 mi from hunt area you mentioned. Is this feasible driving distance? Or, is there something better/closer?

Olguy,

I hunted region D last year during the last week of the season and always hunt antelope in the Saratoga area. I will say, you will bump into a fair number of other hunters deer hunting unless you go deep and if it hasn't gotten cold, go high.
You could stay in Saratoga but you will have a good drive. There seems to be a number of campsites in the region d area on national forest land. Also, If I remeber correctly there are some camp sites with hookups in the riverside/encampment area, but not sure of the details. Just google for encampment, wy campsites. There is also a processor in Encampment/Riverside who has treated us fairly in the past.
Hope this helps some.

You can park your camper about anywhere. But remmber Saratoga Has the hot springs so a run into town is worth it.
Sorry but a 30 minute drive to a hunting area is like your morning walk to the out house. odds are good you'll have a drive like that no matter were you camp. There are some good NF campgrounds all over region D. just remmber to keep an eye on the weather it you get to far back in. seen more than 1 camper come out hooked to a skidsteer.
look at the state and BLM lands also I'll bet pcs has seen some good muley bucks out in antelope 52 along the rim.
Bring your fishing pole

yep, you will see a lot of muley bucks standing around between Saratoga and Encampment. To bad it is all private ( at lease where the deer are).

PCS I take you don't hunt much north of Jack Cr.road in 52.

We usually get the 52 type 2 tag which limits are hunting area. We typically hunt South of the Airport and South of N. Spring Creek Rd. By hunting the last week of the season we can usually tag out in a weekend. Our record is 6 goats in 10 hours of hunting.

I have actually never hunted much North of Jack Creek.

Hi all. I had planned on posting a report when I returned from hunt. I was scheduled to leave for WY on Oct. 6. However, the week before, I developed what I thought was a urinary infection & had to go to Dr. on the 6th. He & my wife cancelled my hunt trip! Dr. sent me for lab work same day I saw him. Tomorrow I go in for CAT scan and later see the urologist. Concern is to check me out for prostate cancer. Lab work revealed elevated PSA. I returned my licenses today and requested refund, per provisions in F&G Regs. What a revoltin development. Well, hopefully, maybe next year. Again, thanks guys for your info. And, get in as much hunting as you can while you can; you never know what the future holds. Hopefully, I will check out alright. My hunting season is not yet over. There is still duck season yet to come here.

Good luck on your condition, wish you the best. If they got the snow we got in the northern part of the state, getting around to hunt would have been tough.

Hope things work out for ya and we'll see ya next year, we did not get near the snow that the northern parts of the state got. I'v gotten mixed report on deer over there but for the most part the reports are what I exspected after a hard winter with numbers down and mostly of middle age bucks that survied. some older bucks were taken but much fewer the a normal year

Just to let you all know; I had CAT scan last week & saw urologist today. I can now breath easy. Only thing on image was a very large prostate, but nothing to worry about. False alarm. Seems when prostate gets large enough it will cause bleeding of blood vessels of the lining, which shows up in your urine. NO CANCER! That's the good news; the bad news is I had to cancel a hunt trip. This is one pissed off gold country Okie! Well, at least my mtn goat hunt in a couple of weeks is still on. And there is duck season coming- AND there will be next year.

That's great news olguy. Good luck on the goat hunt!

Desert Ram & the rest- Returned two days ago from my goat hunt. What a great hunt I had with Bruce Parker. He's in Sitka, but I flew into Juneau & then to his 80' boat by float plane near where we hunted. Four hunters on board for first couple of days, another arrived late on day three and two successful hunters returned on same plane. I got my 4 1/2 yr old billie, sporting 8 3/4" horns on day three. The two remaining hunters got their billies the next day and we three flew out same day. Five hunters, five goats- in four days. Not bad.