I think the 80’s was the beginning of the revolution in backpack hunting with better equipment all around and specialized rifles. Backpacks, like DANA Design, had just barely evolved into what would be familiar to many today - much more compact than aluminum external frames. Backpacking stoves, water filters, tents, sleeping bags and thermarests had barely evolved into the lightweight designs that aren’t too far from today. Goretex was just getting popular in backpacking clothing, but barely any hunting designs other than Cabelas even existed.
Rifles just barely started being offered in stainless. Custom rifles might have a custom stainless barrel, but the blued receiver was all that was available. Scopes weren’t all that much different from the 70’s - varmint hunters and silhouette shooters were some of the only ones familiar with dialing scopes, but it was rarely done big game hunting because we lacked rangefinders. Fiberglass stocks just barely became commonly available. Bullet and cartridge design had been pretty much figured out before the 80’s, but before rangefinders we heavily relied on fast cartridges.
Optics weren’t bad, definitely not as good as today, but a 1980’s compact pair of Leica binoculars wasn’t bad (the Leupold compacts of the time were rebranded Leica and we never saw Swaros - Zeiss and Leica were where it was at).
In Wyoming residents hunted the best areas of the state with over the counter general tags for elk and muledeer, and the best antelope areas were easy to draw and it was assumed every year additional doe tags would be easy to get. Previous decades had easier tags for things like sheep, moose and goats. Everyone’s source of hunting information were books and magazines (like a blog, but on paper), so if a drainage or identifiable location was talked about, that fall and maybe the year after, there would be double the normal amount of four-horse trailers at the trailhead. Eastman’s videos were just becoming popular and each one hooked a number of young hunters, if they lived in the west or not.
In that decade I never ran across many out of state hunters, other than Utah - guys from the east seemed to stop at Colorado. Few came down from Montana, why would they. I might see one other backpack hunter in a season.
I remember photos by what gear I was using - this is the first year with a custom barrel, the action was hard chrome plated and the year before upgrading to a Brown Precision Pounder stock so it must have been late 80’s. For a guy in his early twenties I felt pretty good about my setup.
they hated archery hunters as they scared everything again
also back then the local library carried hunting books. I’m not sure what they carry now but I assume fishing books are still ok
