I was born and raised in Wyoming, and I’ve spent nearly my entire life here. The only exceptions were a couple of years I spent going to college in Colorado, and seven months working in North Dakota.
I don’t miss Colorado at all. That state has some beautiful places and wonderful wildlife, but the hunting seasons are all screwy down there, and even if you get a license, you don’t get much time to hunt and have to work around a whole bunch of other hunters.
North Dakota is another story. Despite having very little public land, that state in the frozen northlands has a whole lot of acreage that’s been opened to public access through their PLOTS program. PLOTS is a lot like our Walk-In program, where private land is made available to hunters.
I miss the waterfowl and pheasants in North Dakota, too. We have great waterfowl hunting here, but it’s nowhere near what you see in North Dakota. It isn’t known as the Duck Factory for nothing. I was astounded by not only the numbers of ducks and geese up there, but by the variety. They had just about every kind of duck you can think of, and lots of them. And don’t get me started on pheasants. They were everywhere. They have pheasants like we have antelope.
But antelope are one of the reasons I’m happy to be back in Wyoming. Deer, elk, and moose, too. They have all those species in North Dakota, but you can only get one deer a year, and elk and moose licenses are once-in-a-lifetime opportunities.
No, I’m glad to be home. Bring on the deer, elk and antelope seasons. I’m more than ready for them this year.
