In to the Great Unknown- Wyo Doe Antelope

[smalls]

Tomorrow morning well before the sun rises I will depart for Wyoming with my oldest daughter. She had some tough luck in the draw and came up empty on a buck tag, but she drew a doe tag in a different unit. The 2nd choice application was a bit of an afterthought, and if I believe what I read on the internet it may very well be one of the worst units in the state for finding an antelope on an accessible piece of state land. However, I take all many of the web stories with a grain of salt as most of them start with a rant about how terrible the area is and the story ends with some variation of "I shot my animal 20 minutes after sun up on the first day".

I've "digitally prepared", pins placed on On-X and copious time spent looking at google earth. But I really don't know what to actually expect once I step foot in the unit. We've got a few days and I'm lucky that my daughter probably prefers the "hiking" part of hunting than the "hunting" part of hunting. If after a couple of days the prospects look bleak we may just switch gears and find some cool hikes to strike out on. She has never killed a big game animal, so I hope she gets that experience but if it doesn't happen, the ride home will not be filled with regret.

So the next few days look pretty ambiguous. I don't know what we're going to find. I don't even know what our focus is going to be. But I am grateful that this $35 2nd choice tag is going to serve as the mechanism to spend a long weekend with a kid that will be off to college in another 18 or so months.

Into the great unknown!

 

[pabearhunter]

Time with your daughter is the TROPHY . Best of luck hunting !

 

[wytex]

Safe travels and best of luck !!
Weather coming in on Tuesday next week that could be quite the change, be prepared if here that long.

 

[deer_shooter]

Good luck!

 

[Sytes]

But I am grateful that this $35 2nd choice tag is going to serve as the mechanism to spend a long weekend with a kid that will be off to college in another 18 or so months

Best to the two of you. Quoted portion sums it up quite nice! Grats pops!

 

[jt13]

Have fun, good luck!

 

[typhoon916]

Awesome get after it .. following

 

[smalls]

I think it went exactly how this hunt was supposed to.

There's only about 5 chunks of ground that are both accessible and have a reasonable chance of holding an antelope in the unit. They range in size from a half section of ground to about 10,000 acres. We had an opportunity immediately as we pulled up to the first piece of ground on Friday afternoon. Four does were standing 75 yards off the road and were fairly ambivalent to our presence. It seemed too good to be true and I was a very cautious that I wasn't missing something in the regs. Ultimately they were fair game but some ponies in the background prevented a safe shot and by the time the goats cleared the horses they got a little skittish and left in a hasty fashion.

The next day and a half we searched the open land, finding a few antelope here and there. Most of the time they were either in a very safe place with little cover in any direction or on the move. As we'd drive from one spot to the next we'd see thousands of antelope grazing on the private lands along side piles of deer (and some elk). We had some really good stalks and hiked many miles. We had 3 opportunities where we couldn't get closer than about 350 yards... which was beyond the 300 yard outer limit of where I wanted her shooting from.

Sunday morning we caught the break we needed. We were hiking in at first light to the backside of some private hayground when a pack of coyotes attempted to split up a herd of deer below us. The action not only spooked the deer but also a group of nearby antelope sending them scattering in a couple different directions. A lone doe crossed in front of us about a half mile out. We figured she was going to want to rejoin her group so we dropped down into a ravine and made our way to a small ridge that we thought would put us in between her and her herd. Then we waited... and waited. Patience is not my strong suit but after about 45 minutes we saw her ears bobbing just over the hill top and she was doing exactly what we hoped for. The grass was tall enough to prevent us from using the bipod so we set my pack upright and used it as a rest. She came out at 150 yards but noticed us and took a few hurried steps before stopping and looking back at 225 yards. It was a perfect broadside silhouette and at the shot.... nothing happened. She racked another shell and repositioned with the antelope now at 250. The shot was quartering to us and I told my daughter to aim for the front side of the near shoulder, this shot found its mark and dropped the doe in her tracks.

It was my daughters first big game animal. She has been on a couple of unsuccessful hunts and after some challenges pulling the trigger, I wasn't sure she really wanted to kill an animal. She is a high performing kid and wins a lot of awards and gets a lot of recognition (particularly academically), but I don't know that I've seen her as overwhelmed with the sense of accomplishment as I saw in that moment. She was eager to help with the field dressing and packing portion of the task. I feel fortunate that we didn't shoot the first doe on the first 5 minutes of arriving. I don't think it would have been the same to her without earning the blisters on her feet, the barbwire scratches from climbing through fences, or the frustration of seemingly being 2 minutes too late or 100 yards too far at every encounter.

Overall, we were lucky. We could have just as easily come home from this trip empty handed as we did with an animal in the cooler. Things that were in our favor were that there was essentially nobody else hunting antelope. I think the only other antelope hunter we saw was a cheesehead with the license plates that I translated to "Tuna Can" driving mach 3 on the roads around the unit, and we didn't even see tuna again after Friday night. Had there been even one or two other groups occupying the limited ground we were hunting it would have made it exponentially more difficult. There were other hunters out and about, but I assume they were looking for elk as they typically hiked through the prairie ground to get up in to the steeper forested habitat. Second thing in our favor was how dry it was. The antelope were thankfully going to and from water sources constantly which caused them to meander around a little more than I expected. Lastly, the weather was gorgeous and made it very easy to spend all day hiking around without overheating or freezing our asses off. In fact, I think I got a bit of a sunburn.

This is what I envisioned on a marginal Wyoming unit 2nd choice doe tag. There weren't a lot of access options and opportunities were not easy to come by (I don't think we would have filled a buck tag). In 2.5 days of hunting we saw 21 total antelope that were on public land and with a little persistence we got a reasonable chance to kill an animal. It was fun and with 6 points headed into next years drawing, my daughter is insisting that we do it again with buck tags in our pocket.

 

[jt13]

I think it went exactly how this hunt was supposed to.

There's only about 5 chunks of ground that are both accessible and have a reasonable chance of holding an antelope in the unit. They range in size from a half section of ground to about 10,000 acres. We had an opportunity immediately as we pulled up to the first piece of ground on Friday afternoon. Four does were standing 75 yards off the road and were fairly ambivalent to our presence. It seemed too good to be true and I was a very cautious that I wasn't missing something in the regs. Ultimately they were fair game but some ponies in the background prevented a safe shot and by the time the goats cleared the horses they got a little skittish and left in a hasty fashion.

The next day and a half we searched the open land, finding a few antelope here and there. Most of the time they were either in a very safe place with little cover in any direction or on the move. As we'd drive from one spot to the next we'd see thousands of antelope grazing on the private lands along side piles of deer (and some elk). We had some really good stalks and hiked many miles. We had 3 opportunities where we couldn't get closer than about 350 yards... which was beyond the 300 yard outer limit of where I wanted her shooting from.

Sunday morning we caught the break we needed. We were hiking in at first light to the backside of some private hayground when a pack of coyotes attempted to split up a herd of deer below us. The action not only spooked the deer but also a group of nearby antelope sending them scattering in a couple different directions. A lone doe crossed in front of us about a half mile out. We figured she was going to want to rejoin her group so we dropped down into a ravine and made our way to a small ridge that we thought would put us in between her and her herd. Then we waited... and waited. Patience is not my strong suit but after about 45 minutes we saw her ears bobbing just over the hill top and she was doing exactly what we hoped for. The grass was tall enough to prevent us from using the bipod so we set my pack upright and used it as a rest. She came out at 150 yards but noticed us and took a few hurried steps before stopping and looking back at 225 yards. It was a perfect broadside silhouette and at the shot.... nothing happened. She racked another shell and repositioned with the antelope now at 250. The shot was quartering to us and I told my daughter to aim for the front side of the near shoulder, this shot found its mark and dropped the doe in her tracks.

It was my daughters first big game animal. She has been on a couple of unsuccessful hunts and after some challenges pulling the trigger, I wasn't sure she really wanted to kill an animal. She is a high performing kid and wins a lot of awards and gets a lot of recognition (particularly academically), but I don't know that I've seen her as overwhelmed with the sense of accomplishment as I saw in that moment. She was eager to help with the field dressing and packing portion of the task. I feel fortunate that we didn't shoot the first doe on the first 5 minutes of arriving. I don't think it would have been the same to her without earning the blisters on her feet, the barbwire scratches from climbing through fences, or the frustration of seemingly being 2 minutes too late or 100 yards too far at every encounter.

Overall, we were lucky. We could have just as easily come home from this trip empty handed as we did with an animal in the cooler. Things that were in our favor were that there was essentially nobody else hunting antelope. I think the only other antelope hunter we saw was a cheesehead with the license plates that I translated to "Tuna Can" driving mach 3 on the roads around the unit, and we didn't even see tuna again after Friday night. Had there been even one or two other groups occupying the limited ground we were hunting it would have made it exponentially more difficult. There were other hunters out and about, but I assume they were looking for elk as they typically hiked through the prairie ground to get up in to the steeper forested habitat. Second thing in our favor was how dry it was. The antelope were thankfully going to and from water sources constantly which caused them to meander around a little more than I expected. Lastly, the weather was gorgeous and made it very easy to spend all day hiking around without overheating or freezing our asses off. In fact, I think I got a bit of a sunburn.

This is what I envisioned on a marginal Wyoming unit 2nd choice doe tag. There weren't a lot of access options and opportunities were not easy to come by (I don't think we would have filled a buck tag). In 2.5 days of hunting we saw 21 total antelope that were on public land and with a little persistence we got a reasonable chance to kill an animal. It was fun and with 6 points headed into next years drawing, my daughter is insisting that we do it again with buck tags in our pocket.

Congratulations!

 

[npaden]

Congratulations. The memory of that trip will last a lifetime.

 

[Duck-Slayer]

Congratulations, nothing better than making memories with your child! Speaking from experience.
Matt

 

[WapitiBob]

congrats, well done

 

[homestead]

That's awesome. Congratulations.