Hunt Area 26, Ucross, Wyoming

Rolling shortgrass prairie interspersed with clinker hills, knobby buttes, and incised creek drainages; elevation spans approximately 3,690 to 5,000 feet, with the Ucross townsite sitting at about 4,082 feet. The landscape is typical Powder River Basin high plains — open and expansive — with relief provided by dissected draws and stream corridors of Clear Creek, Piney Creek, and the Powder River.

Public land access is severely limited — approximately 26 percent of the unit is public land (roughly 15 percent BLM, 11 percent Wyoming state), with many parcels surrounded by or accessible only through private land. The BLM Buffalo Field Office manages lands across Campbell, Johnson, and Sheridan counties; specific BLM tracts within Area 26 are accessible only where public roads provide legal entry. The Wyoming Game and Fish Department Walk-In Hunting (Access Yes) program enrolls private and state acres statewide (over 700,000 acres program-wide involving roughly 450 landowners); specific enrolled parcels within the unit change year to year and are mapped in WGFD's online Walk-In Hunting atlas. Private road access for oil and gas infrastructure does not confer hunting access. Hunters seeking private land opportunities must negotiate trespass fees directly with landowners. Public pressure concentrates heavily on the limited accessible tracts.

Uplands are dominated by shortgrass and mixed-grass prairie with blue grama, buffalo grass, needle and thread, western wheatgrass, and prairie June grass, often interspersed with silver sagebrush and Wyoming big sagebrush on ridges and mid-slopes. Draws hold dense patches of chokecherry and skunkbush. Riparian corridors along Clear Creek, Piney Creek, and the Powder River support cottonwood and willow galleries. Agricultural fields irrigated by center pivots appear near ranch headquarters and provide additional food sources that concentrate white-tailed deer.

Both mule deer and white-tailed deer inhabit the unit. Mule deer occupy open grasslands and the slopes of clinker hills and buttes; the mule deer herd in the Sheridan Region has been trending below management objective since 2019, with severe winterkill in 2022-23 and ongoing recovery. White-tailed deer concentrate in riparian creek bottoms and near irrigated croplands. Chronic wasting disease (CWD) prevalence in white-tailed deer in the Sheridan Region exceeds 30 percent per WGFD 2025 Hunt Forecast. Pronghorn antelope inhabit the open sagebrush-grassland uplands and are present throughout the unit. Elk move through the area, particularly along drainages, though most Sheridan Region elk concentrate in the Bighorn Mountains to the west. Wild turkeys are well-established along riparian corridors near Ucross and Clear Creek. Sage grouse are present in appropriate sagebrush-steppe habitat. Coyotes, badgers, bobcat, beaver, and fox round out the mammal community. Raptors including bald eagles are observed in the area.