Six Wyoming Mule Deer Areas Have Stayed in the Buck Harvest Top 10 Since 2021

ISteady Names

Six areas endured the lean year

The lowest statewide buck tally across the five seasons came in 2023: 12,611. Wyoming recorded 16,133 for 2021 and 15,783 for 2025. Despite that decline, six areas never left the top 10. They were Southeast Wyoming and Baggs, Laramie Peak and Northwest Gillette, plus Clearmont and Crook. We identified them by ordering all 126 areas on their estimated buck take for each season, adding together the totals for every weapon and license class.

The leading 2025 tally belonged to Southeast Wyoming: 651. Behind it came Baggs with 526, Laramie Peak with 450, Northwest Gillette with 444 and Clearmont with 434. A total of 323 puts Crook in position 10, the final spot among the ten. In 2025, four areas placed above Crook but lacked an unbroken streak. South Converse tallied 367, with two top 10 finishes across the five seasons. Bates Hole-Hat Six tallied 362 and made it in three seasons; Wind River tallied 344 and also made it in three. Bearlodge tallied 337 and made it in one.

Our Wyoming elk paper also finds Baggs and Laramie Peak repeatedly among the elk leaders. Wyoming assigns separate area numbers to elk and deer. For Baggs, the deer designation is 82 and the elk designation is 21. For Laramie Peak, those designations are 64 and 7, respectively.

IIBucks And Hunters

The leading pair had different hunter turnout

Ordering areas by buck take leaves hunter turnout out of view. The 2025 deer report attributes Southeast Wyoming's tally of 651 bucks to 1,438 hunters who were active, with reported success of 51.3 percent. Second-place Baggs recorded 526 bucks from 1,659 hunters who were active; its reported success was 31.7 percent.

Another pair follows that pattern: Northwest Gillette logged 444 bucks from 1,184 hunters, with success reported at 37.8 percent; Clearmont logged 434 bucks from 888 hunters, with success reported at 49.7 percent. Their buck totals are close, while their hunter counts and success figures differ widely. Those percentages include a harvest of any deer. All deer reported for Baggs were bucks, 526 out of 526, making its percentage a buck success rate. Southeast Wyoming's take includes 86 does and fawns alongside its 651 bucks.

IIIResidents And Nonresidents

The resident and nonresident buck take

Wyoming's 2025 total of 15,783 bucks included 10,371 killed by residents; the nonresident tally was 5,412. Half of the six leading areas reverse that statewide pattern. For nonresidents, the counts were 296 out of 444 bucks at Northwest Gillette, 265 out of 434 at Clearmont, and 187 out of 323 at Crook. Residents accounted for the larger share in the remaining three areas: Southeast Wyoming, 428 out of 651; Baggs, 296 out of 526; and Laramie Peak, 283 out of 450.

For Northwest Gillette, reported resident success was 22.9 percent among 647 hunters. The nonresident group had 537 hunters and reported success of 55.9 percent. Outcomes differed sharply between those groups even within a single area during a single season.

Nonresident participation is restricted by a state rule that sets regional limits on general deer licenses for nonresidents. Those policy settings undergo revisions. We have yet to establish whether the limits account for the nonresident shares of harvest we observed. Residents should consult the rows covering resident hunters. Nonresidents should consult their group's rows along with the limit applying to their region.

IVTags And Swings

License numbers and harvest totals shifted together

A department table covering ten years pairs the mule deer license counts with harvest figures. It records 65,862 licenses for 2021, 58,828 for 2022, 47,456 for 2023, 46,936 for 2024 and 49,179 for 2025. In that same season order, buck totals were 16,133, then 15,717, followed by 12,611, then 14,179 and finally 15,783. Both sets of figures decline before rebounding. The license count reached its low a year later than the buck take. No reason for the license decline is given in the report, and we will offer no guess.

With those statewide changes in mind, an area's sharp swings stand out, though their causes are difficult to pin down. Baggs recorded 875 bucks for 2022 and 286 for 2023, dropping by 589. During that same year, West Green River's area 135 fell to 84 from 574. Its recovery has reached just 291. None of the tables we consulted explained these changes.

The Montana paper tracks mule deer across more years and reports that the estimated harvest in 2025 was 43.4 percent below the estimate for 2004.

VSurvey Fine Print

The state's count and the gaps

The deer numbers begin with a questionnaire sent by email. A voluntary survey was sent to 51,668 license holders, and the report uses 21,104 replies. Those responses were expanded to represent the 63,100 licenses issued for mule deer and white-tailed deer combined. The Wyoming Survey and Analysis Center conducts the surveys for the department. Our analysis used only the table for mule deer hunt areas.

Only herd units receive confidence intervals; the herd-unit table reports them at 90 percent. For the Baggs herd unit in 2025, the estimated buck tally of 600 has bounds of 541 to 659. No such intervals accompany hunt areas, so consider nearby totals tied. South Converse's 367 and Bates Hole-Hat Six's 362 differ by five bucks. That gap does not demonstrate a meaningful edge.

Compared with success rates or draw odds, a buck tally addresses a more limited question. Issued licenses and hunters who were active appear in the report, but application totals do not. These figures also cannot distinguish deer abundance from access, quotas or hunting effort. They support only the statement "hunters killed more".

VIShortlist Rule

Start with six areas, then check your group

Use those six areas to start your reading, then determine where your license allows you to hunt. Sort the resident rows if you are a resident, or the nonresident rows if you are a nonresident. Whichever group applies, use its success column in the report to order areas before consulting buck totals. Success here includes any harvested deer, so that column offers no direct comparison of success on mule deer bucks.

Give a lone bumper season less weight. Baggs tallied 875 bucks for 2022, followed by 286 the following season. Using either total by itself would give a misleading picture. Favor areas that retained a top-10 ranking during the poor season. All six here managed that in 2023.

More ways that agency deer figures can give hunters the wrong impression appear in Data Hunter's Field Guide.