Is it going to be busy on the Doe/fawn opener?

[jake23]

So I usually hunt antelope toward the end of the season in October. This year we only have Doe tags and due to work schedule I will have to hunt opening weekend in August. Opener for The type 1 tags is September 10.
I am wondering if the Doe/fawn opener is going to be busy? I can’t imagine that it would be, but I have never done it before. Am I gonna regret this decision? Thanks in advance. This site is a wealth of info and I appreciate all who make it that way.

Jake

 

[Bluffgruff]

You'll be good

 

[BlakeA]

Fawn openers in September are typically insane but if you are willing to hike in a ways and do an epic packout you should be ok.

 

[jt13]

From my limited experience, it wasnt busy or crowded at all.

We did have an interesting experience with some road hunting though. They stopped their truck and dropped 4 does and fawns from the edge of the blacktop on the county road using a utility pole as a rifle rest. Thankfully we werent directly in the line of fire... They pulled the truck into the field, loaded them all up whole, and drove off. Never could get a plate number. Watched it through the binos from my groundblind a mile away

 

[LCH]

From my limited experience, it wasnt busy or crowded at all.

We did have an interesting experience with some road hunting though. They stopped their truck and dropped 4 does and fawns from the edge of the blacktop on the county road using a utility pole as a rifle rest. Thankfully we werent directly in the line of fire... They pulled the truck into the field, loaded them all up whole, and drove off. Never could get a plate number. Watched it through the binos from my groundblind a mile away

Not really how I like to hunt, but probably how the majority of type 6/7 pronghorn tags are filled in Wyoming. The utility pole is probably still technically in the ROW though.

 

[jt13]

Not really how I like to hunt, but probably how the majority of type 6/7 pronghorn tags are filled in Wyoming. The utility pole is probably still technically in the ROW though.

Besides the shooting from a state highway, which is bad enough. The thing that bothered me more than anything were that they disregarded the parking area sign at the Walk-in area and drove into one of the irrigated fields. I spoke to the landowner the year prior and he explicitly stated that no one was allowed to be in there and was one reason he was thinking about getting out of the program

 

[jake23]

Thanks for all of the input. Kinda what I was thinking. But since I have never hunted opening weekend I really wasn’t sure. I know opening weekend for buck is crazy!

 

[Washington Hunter]

It probably depends somewhat on which unit you're talking about and how many doe tags there are in that unit. Some only have a small number, like 25 or 50, others have a few hundred. My guess is that the majority of doe tags are held by people who also have a buck tag, at least for the non residents. So I would think most of the hunting pressure will be during the buck season. Still I would try to avoid the weekends as I imagine locals will mostly hunt then. Can you hunt Thursday/Friday or Monday/Tuesday? That's what I would try to do if possible. In fact that's exactly what I'll be doing with my daughter, as she has one doe tag with a season that opens August 15. We're hunting August 22 and 23 (Thursday & Friday.) We'll only have the two days to hunt, since this is more of a Yellowstone vacation with my daughters than an antelope hunt. But we're hoping for few hunters, plentiful antelope, and a quick and easy hunt. If she's not successful it's no big deal, we'll just plan a more serious hunt for next year.

 

[jake23]

I will be getting there on August 17 and can hunt that afternoon through Tuesday morning the 20th. So even if the weekend is busy, I will still have all day Monday and Tuesday morning. I am thinking it should be fine. I am getting super excited since we are just over two weeks out! My Wife has tags and so does my Dad.

We usually harvest all of our red meat for the year with these trips. Since I can’t hunt deer or elk this year, we loaded up on the antelope tags. Antelope taste great and my family loves it!!

Good luck to all this season!

 

[Focus]

I will be getting there on August 17 and can hunt that afternoon through Tuesday morning the 20th. So even if the weekend is busy, I will still have all day Monday and Tuesday morning. I am thinking it should be fine. I am getting super excited since we are just over two weeks out! My Wife has tags and so does my Dad.

We usually harvest all of our red meat for the year with these trips. Since I can’t hunt deer or elk this year, we loaded up on the antelope tags. Antelope taste great and my family loves it!!

Good luck to all this season!

I'm not going until late September. Save some for me.