A Montana shed hunter’s (accidental) last Wyoming dance

JACKSON HOLE—A scrunched, humbled look broke out on Tim Mangold’s face as he gripped the little, lone antler he carried out of the western Wyoming mountains on Wednesday.

The 59-year-old affable Darby, Montana man — a hunting outfitter, woodworker and father of seven — had had quite the day.

A lover of wildlands and seeker of sheds, Mangold had just finished approximately his 30th opening-day antler hunt on the public land adjacent to the off-limits National Elk Refuge.

By 4:30 p.m., the rugged, straight-talking westerner with a soft spot for Wyoming (he’s lived here before) had soaked feet from fording a creek and traversing several thousand snowy vertical feet over 10 straight hours. Yet, he was still nearly 5 miles from where he’d left his truck on an unseasonably cold, blustery day. Mangold thumbed down the only vehicle that lingered in the vicinity of the Flat Creek Trailhead — the rig driven by me, out looking for shed hunters to talk to.

Not too long into a willing interview, the Montanan learned the timing of his visit had broken the new laws governing shed hunting here.

“You’re not going to like this,” I told him as we rumbled southbound over the graveled Refuge Road.

“The first week of the season is resident only,” I explained. “I don’t want to get you in trouble.”

Mangold was offered an out: The option to withhold his name.

He declined.

“Whatever,” Mangold said. “I didn’t have a clue.”

The flip-phone wielding Montanan said he hadn’t caught the news that the Wyoming Legislature had instituted unprecedented regulations around the springtime tradition of shed antler hunting. In short, Wyoming residents now get a one-week head start. In addition to bringing up the rear, non-residents who come to hunt for elkhorn, moose paddles and deer sheds must now also purchase a $21.50 conservation stamp.

Unaware of the changes, Mangold did what he had done on April 30 for three decades and counting. Even lacking a crew to tag along, he packed up his stuff and rolled away from Ravalli County, Montana, bound for Teton County, where one of the West’s largest and longest-studied elk herds creates a shed antler hunting spectacle every spring.

“I kissed the wife goodbye and said, ‘I’ll be back in a couple days, babe,’” Mangold recalled.

He made it to the Teton County Fairgrounds in the middle of the night, then slept a couple hours reclined in his Chevy Avalanche. Just past 5:30 a.m., he joined the caravan of shed hunters who’d staged there.

“The cop shop, everybody was there,” Mangold said. Nobody questioned his Montana plates, he said.

The line snaking toward the northern reaches of Refuge Road, which has been closed to the public since Dec. 1, stretched for about 120 vehicles. That’s about half the count from some recent years , owing to a boom in the antler rush that — until now — attracted predominantly out-of-state residents .

Refuge Project Leader Frank Durbian used the words “mellow” and “smooth” to describe 2024’s opening day, which went off without a hitch relative to some problematic past openers that invited rampant illegal activity and even hardship .

“The general outlay of how our law enforcement went was [there were] very few minor trespass violations,” Durbian said. “I’m just glad it went smoothly for everybody involved.”

The very first person in the 2024 line of trucks and trailers was Dubois resident Monte Baker, a pianist and antler artist whose family member hit the caravan lottery perfectly. Late the night before the antler rush, he lamented how profit — which has motivated plenty of illegal actors — has changed the nature of hunting for what’s sometimes called brown gold. The year’s newly shed brown elk antlers can fetch nearly $20 a pound, and deadheads of the largest trophy bulls are worth thousands of dollars.

“I started as a kid … it wasn’t a big deal, you could go out and you could find piles of antlers,” Baker said. “It just exploded.”

Mangold also regrets what’s become of shed hunting. He never sells his antlers even if they’d fetch a decent chunk of money, because, “that’s what ruined it.”

During his accidentally illegal all-day hike on the Bridger-Teton National Forest, he came upon two different bull elk “deadheads.” Although not trophies by Mangold’s standards, they were sizable, with six points apiece on each antler. Rather than take the whole head or saw off the horns, the Montanan left them lying for someone else to stumble into.

“I’m not dissing them at all,” Mangold said of the left-behind antlered elk heads. “But if it ain’t 350 dude” — a Boone and Crockett’s system score — “I’m not picking it up and carrying it.”

The four-point elk shed Mangold held onto was different. He essentially carried the little antler out as a memento of an epic-to-him day adventuring in the steep, slick mountains rimming the east side of Jackson Hole.

“It was so nasty a couple places I was at,” Mangold said, “I had to throw that thing down the hill.”

Mangold’s strategy for the day was to hike big and high. If he saw footprints, he’d keep heading uphill, adding elevation to a hike that led from Curtis Canyon toward the Gros Ventre Range’s Sheep Mountain (also known as the Sleeping Indian).

“Nobody’s tracks were farther than mine back there,” Mangold said. “I saw where everybody else was at, cut all their tracks and just kept going.”

He hiked by three different sets of black bear tracks, plus the imprints of a mountain lion. He stayed in motion throughout the entire day, not bothering to even sip water or snack, though he had both in his pack.

Mangold’s body held up. The nearly 60-year-old Montanan felt “great,” even after 10 hours of continuous movement over mountains and through patches of deadfall.

“I’ve been in the mountains all my adult life, hiking,” he said. “You pack moose out on your back in Alaska, it’ll change your attitude.”

Still, by 5:30 p.m. Mangold was ready to take a load off. The tentative plan was to lay his head at the Virginian Lodge and fill his belly with brisket at Bubba’s Bar-B-Que. His original plan was to hike for consecutive days, but he realized he’d have to think up something else to do on day two.

“Now that I know you can’t do it, I won’t go out tomorrow,” Mangold assured me. “I put on so many miles today, dude. I’m satisfied.”

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