Thanks to technology, it’s the dawn of a new day for disabled hunters, said a Casper man who's been partially paralyzed for a  decade, but never stopped hunting.

In late 2015, Gerald Gay, then 59, had experienced decades of outdoor adventure when a complication from spinal surgery left him temporarily paralyzed “from about the middle of my body down,” he told Cowboy State Daily.

Through physical therapy, he eventually regained the ability to stand and walk short distances with a cane and leg braces.

“The first thing I asked them to teach me in physical therapy was how to stand up and say the Pledge of Allegiance,” he said.

However, he thought his days of ever seeing the outdoors past what could be seen from roads were over.

It’s illegal for able-bodied hunters to shoot big game from vehicles. The Wyoming Game and Fish Department issues special permits, allowing disabled hunters to shoot from vehicles.

So, for several years, Gay was limited to “road hunting” from friends' pickups.  

Gerald Gay of Casper got his Outrider Coyote all-terrain wheelchair for hunting, but says it’s handy around town as well. (Courtesy Scott Weber)A New Day For Disabled Hunters

His horizons recently broadened.

In 2024, Gay got an all-terrain, single person called a Coyote, made by the Outrider company of North Carolina.

Though it’s technically an “electric wheelchair,” it’s really more of an off-road buggy, with four wheels, high clearance and aggressive tread on the tires, Gay said.

This past fall, he used it to hunt way back off the road, and to be picky about which mule deer buck he shot.

“On day three of the hunt, I shot a wonderful buck mule deer, a five-by-five (five points on each side of the antlers),” he said.

What’s more, he quartered the deer and transported the meat out by himself.

“Everything you do if you’re fully physically capable, I’m able to do with the Coyote,” he said.

As he sees it, equipment such as the Coyote, and other cutting-edge technology, is opening the doors wide for disabled hunters to go places and experience adventures that would have previously been impossible for them.

He’s not alone in his optimism.  

Randy Svalina of Laramie recently lost most of one of his legs, and initially went hunting on crutches, as he adjusted to a new prosthetic leg.

He told Cowboy State Daily that he and his doctor are hoping to redesign the prosthetic to double as a rifle rest.  

Another disabled hunter, Idaho resident Tj Cartwright, was left totally blind by a bowhunting accident years ago.

He initially gave up on ever being able to hunt again. His father, a Wyoming resident, convinced him to try waterfowl hunting. Cartwright learned to shoot ducks and geese with a shotgun by zeroing in on the birds’ sounds.

In the fall of 2024, with the aid of special devices that help an observer line up his rifle shots, he shot a white-tailed deer buck in Park County.

“I just want everybody to look past the disabilities and realize that it’s not right to think that they can’t hunt. Just because you have a disability and do things a different way doesn’t mean that you can’t do it. Everybody deserves to be out there and to have fun,” he told Cowboy State Daily at the time.

It's Good For Walking To Dog Too

Gay said the Coyote is “computer-controlled,” and he’s set its maximum speed at 10 miles per hour.

It’s probably capable of going much faster, but he doesn’t want to risk flipping it if he ever has to take a sharp turn at high speed.

In addition to allowing him to hunt off-road, Gay said the Coyote is great for getting around town.

He has some special modifications on his buggy, including a rifle rest and a hitch for pulling a small trailer.

In town, the rifle rest “serves as a hook for my dog’s leash,” he said.

“I can hook the end of her leash on it and she is free to roam the entire length of her leash, without me having to use my hands, he said.

When he’s hunting, he hitches a small trailer to the Coyote, so he can transport big game quarters.

When there’s snow in town, he hitches a sled to it and takes neighborhood kids for “sled rides,” he said.

Bird Hunting And Completing The ‘Grand Slam’

With a new range of hunting opportunities open to him, Gay said he’d like to take the Coyote upland bird hunting.

“I’d love to try it on birds, if I had a bird dog with me. If a dog could locate a pheasant and go on point, I could have my shotgun at the ready, flush the pheasant on my terms, and harvest a pheasant,” he said.

A bigger ambition is to complete his hunts for the “grand slam” of all four North American bighorn sheep species.

Those include Dall Sheep, Stone Sheep, Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep (which Wyoming has) and desert bighorn sheep.

He got the first three species when he was still able-bodied, between 1981 and 2008.

And that’s a good thing, because Dall sheep, Stone sheep and Rocky Mountain bighorns live in rugged, high mountain areas where even the Coyote can’t go, he said.

Desert bighorns live in lower country, in the American Southwest, in places where it might be possible for Gay to get to them.

He’s already prepared the Coyote’s tires for traversing deserts.

“The first thing I did when I got the Coyote was, I brought a gallon jug of green slime (internal tire protector) and pumped the tires full of green slime. So, catus spikes, goat heads and thorns don’t’ bother the machine,” he said.

Once A Bodybuilder

A close friend of Gay, Scott Weber of Cody, told Cowboy State Daily that he’s known Gay since the early 1970s, and can remember when he had an imposing physical presence.

“We were dating the same girl and she said, 'You gotta meet this guy!'  At that time Gerry was a bodybuilder and training night and day for Mr. Wyoming.  He was eating only moose meat and he had zero body fat, ripped with big guns,” Weber told Cowboy State Daily.

Gay also had a fondness for firepower on a prairie dog hunt they took together with some other friends, Weber said.  

“We had .220 Swifts; Gerry brought a custom .458 mag (.458 Winchester Magnum) elephant rifle with 500-grain bullets.  If he shot low on the dog, it took the whole mound out in a plume of dust,” Weber said.

“We became Boone companions after that. He moved to Alaska in 1982 and used that big old gun on brownies (brown bears)," Weber added.

Although Gay’s physical prowess isn’t what it once was, his spirit and love for hunting are as strong as ever, Weber said.

Access For All

Gay said that as he and other disabled hunters venture farther afield with new technology, they’ll probably add their voices to the push for better public access.

There are barbed wire fences on some public land parcels, and Gay said that even with his Coyote, the fences can block his passage.

That might run counter to the Unlawful Enclosures Act, he said. That act, established in the 1800s, states that access to public land can’t be impeded.

“Man-made barriers” on public land might also violate the Americans With Disabilities Act, Gay said.

As a longtime advocate of hunter access to public land, Gay said access for disabled hunters might spark new debates and legislative action.

“Times are changing as the technology is changing,” he said.

Mark Heinz can be reached at [email protected].

In case you missed it