GLENROCK -- It’s all about getting back to the heart of the matter.

Hunting is big business in Wyoming, with sometimes thousands of dollars passing hands when out-of-state sportsmen want to test their skill against the state’s big game.

But small towns like this one are eager to shed the mantle of big-business, high-dollar hunts and get back to basics: hospitality, camaraderie and a little friendly competition with hunters spending time in the field, doing what they love.

That’s where the National Bow Hunt comes in.

Each year, Mark and Kim Gates open their home at the base of the town’s namesake Rock in the Glen to up to a dozen teams of bowhunters from across the country. They serve up platters of home-cooked chow along with hospitality, old-time fiddle tunes and plenty of high spirits as the teams gather to meet local landowners, volunteer guides and other sportsmen.

The nonprofit hunt is run by a committee chaired by the Gateses, including their daughters and their husbands Ashley and Jason Waldock and Evonne and Steve Browning, and two out-of-state members, Lloyd Abernathy and Jerry Beckman.

With roots dating to 1969, the hunt is a Glenrock tradition. Blanche and Hugh Duncan devised the original hunt as a depredation tool to save Blanche’s flower beds from a thriving deer population in the foothills around Boxelder Canyon, Gates said. Even former Gov. Stan Hathaway was a part of the action in those early years.

Gates became involved in 1976, when he served as an errand boy, taking care of odds and ends.

“I love to hunt,” he said. “That got me involved. Through the years I helped in pretty much any way I could, and guided.”

Each team gets a free volunteer guide, someone familiar with the lay of the land and the habits of whitetail and mule deer. They escort the teams to private ranches which are offered at no cost for the hunt.

Lester Grant has permitted National Bow Hunt teams on his mountain property for several years now. He likes to meet the sportsmen and talk old hunting stories at the barbecues, and seems to enjoy the out-of-staters' delight at having so much open land to track their quarry on.

Participating is also a way to extend a little goodwill as private landowners -- some of whom bring in significant dollars from paying hunters each year, he said.

That tradition of giving and sharing is a hallmark of the bow hunt, and one of the qualities that draws volunteers -- especially at a time of year when some sportsmen have a limited amount of time to pursue hunting for themselves.

“I could be out hunting myself, but it’s a tradition more of giving of one’s self,” Gates said with a shrug of his wide shoulders. “It’s just about camaraderie, and the giving -- the landowners, the volunteer guides, everybody.”

Cost is deliberately low for hunters. They must put in party hunting applications for licenses from the Game and Fish Department and are responsible for their travel to Glenrock. Each sportsman pays a $180 fee, which is turned right back over to things for the hunters, such as awards, hats, coats and a banquet, Gates said.

'You just enjoy yourself'

This year brings nine teams to the National Bow Hunt, including one team of guides; a women’s team from Minnesota; a Glenrock team; a hybrid Wyoming-Texas-Georgia crew; and groups from Montana, Missouri, Wisconsin and Minnesota.

Each team member gets to seek out his own deer. The Gateses’ home serves as a check station for hunters returning successful from the field. That’s where Mark and Kim Gates’ dads, Rex Gates and Gary Deveraux, serve as judges.

“It’s not a competition -- I’d like to stress that,” Mark said. “It’s about having a good time, and if you get an animal, that’s a bonus. We do have a friendly little competition, for braggin’ rights.”

Deveraux comes from Oregon each year to evaluate the trophies and have fun with good people, he said. The National Bow Hunt dates are marked off on his calendar for perpetuity, or “as long as the good Lord’s willing.”

Just standing around, he gets to hear a season’s worth of hunting stories, peppered with a few tall tales for spice.

After a day of scoping the terrain and its bounty, bowhunter and country singer Roland Whitt was mesmerized by the wide-open spaces and availability of land, not to mention the swaths of animals he’s seen already. It’s not like that in his home state of Texas, he said, where finding land to pursue game on can be difficult and costly.

He came to the bowhunt as part of a hybrid team of sportsmen from Texas, Wyoming and Georgia, guys he'd hunted with in other parts of the world. The greatest allure of the National Bow Hunt is the feeling of relaxation and opportunity, minus the pressure.

“You don’t have to worry about time running out on you,” he said. “You get to just enjoy yourself.”

Dan Mangus of Glenrock is hunting this year, and has participated for several.

“I’ve got to meet a lot of good people,” he said. Some, he’s built a history with, expanding the hunting experience in Africa and Canada. “I like to hunt, they like to hunt,” he summed up. “It’ an opportunity to bring everybody together, talk about old times. It’s just fun to be here.”

Family affair

The hunters begin to feel a lot like family, gathered together for a common passion. That’s an extension of the Gateses' commitment to the sport and to hospitality.

With nine grandchildren -- some still in their mothers’ arms -- Kim said she’s feeling relief that there will be family members to pass the tradition on to. For 12 years, she’d cooked up a storm for the hunters’ first gathering together, with her daughters and daughter-in-law stirring soups for hunting day meals.

Ashley Waldock, the Gateses’ daughter, juggled her baby Shelby in her arms, offering a camouflage pacifier, as she greeted hunters at the barbecue. Hunting is a way of life in her family, and the National Bow Hunt sort of sums up all the things her family holds dear about Wyoming falls.

“My dad’s always hunted,” she said. “September is just always the hunting season.”

She loves making new friends, and watching the wide grins they sport returning successful from the field.

Many send Christmas cards and otherwise keep in touch, Kim noted.

“Everybody comes back,” she said. “They’re family. They become family.”