Wyoming Antelope, here I come (again).

[bts09]

Here we go. I had such a good experience with my first Wyoming public land antelope hunt last year that I put in for three more tags this year and drew them all. I’ll be hunting the same unit, this time with two buddies—one who accompanied me last year and one who’s new to hunting. Between the three of us, we have two “any” antelope tags and six doe/fawn tags. We’ve only got a four-day hunt scheduled, so it could be a real challenge to punch all these tags, especially with weather moving in tomorrow night. The unit has a fair number of antelope, but at least based on last year’s experience, getting two per day will be tough (we got two over the course of three days in this unit last year).

I’m driving up from Texas. Plan is to leave the Houston area late in the day today, spend the night somewhere past Fort Worth, then drive the rest of the way from there, arriving in Wyoming sometime late tomorrow evening (hopefully in front of the heaviest snow), then hunt Thursday-Sunday. I’ve really enjoyed following along with all the hunts being updated real time this year, so I’ll try to post updates each night for those who want to follow along.

I’ll start with a picture of last year’s souvenir—I shot a tiny buck, but big enough to make two skinning knives out of—one for me and one for my hunting buddy. They turned out about as well as I could have hoped for someone who had never made a knife before.

 

[LousyResident]

Awesome! Keep us updated on the trip!

 

[wytex]

Ft Worth will be roughly a 12 hr drive to Laramie, or Cheyenne. If you can get to Amarillo your drive will be much easier next day and you'll arrive before dark.
We make the trip from Laramie to Grapevine every year and it takes about 12 hrs straight through with stops for fuel.
Don't speed through Estelline, big speed trap!
We take 287 up to I-70 then the toll road around Denver, traffic along I-25 North of Denver is a nightmare during certain times. Seems anything can cause backups for miles.
Travel safe and good luck !
Like the knives !!

 

[Hankg]

Here we go. I had such a good experience with my first Wyoming public land antelope hunt last year that I put in for three more tags this year and drew them all. I’ll be hunting the same unit, this time with two buddies—one who accompanied me last year and one who’s new to hunting. Between the three of us, we have two “any” antelope tags and six doe/fawn tags. We’ve only got a four-day hunt scheduled, so it could be a real challenge to punch all these tags, especially with weather moving in tomorrow night. The unit has a fair number of antelope, but at least based on last year’s experience, getting two per day will be tough (we got two over the course of three days in this unit last year).

I’m driving up from Texas. Plan is to leave the Houston area late in the day today, spend the night somewhere past Fort Worth, then drive the rest of the way from there, arriving in Wyoming sometime late tomorrow evening (hopefully in front of the heaviest snow), then hunt Thursday-Sunday. I’ve really enjoyed following along with all the hunts being updated real time this year, so I’ll try to post updates each night for those who want to follow along.

I’ll start with a picture of last year’s souvenir—I shot a tiny buck, but big enough to make two skinning knives out of—one for me and one for my hunting buddy. They turned out about as well as I could have hoped for someone who had never made a knife before.


View attachment 116510

I made the drive from Louisiana a couple of weeks ago. On way up I slept in truck at Lake Meridith north of Amarillo. Good, free federal park with bathhouse. On way back slept in truck at Jellystone campground on east side of Wichita Falls. Cost $15. Great campground with locked entrance and great bathhouse / laundromat. Good luck. FWIW try to avoid driving through stretch between Colorado Springs and Denver during rush hour. Good luck

 

[Doe Nob]

Drive safe, that's a long haul I have done many times. Good luck!

 

[duckhunt]

Good luck

 

[Hankg]

Here we go. I had such a good experience with my first Wyoming public land antelope hunt last year that I put in for three more tags this year and drew them all. I’ll be hunting the same unit, this time with two buddies—one who accompanied me last year and one who’s new to hunting. Between the three of us, we have two “any” antelope tags and six doe/fawn tags. We’ve only got a four-day hunt scheduled, so it could be a real challenge to punch all these tags, especially with weather moving in tomorrow night. The unit has a fair number of antelope, but at least based on last year’s experience, getting two per day will be tough (we got two over the course of three days in this unit last year).

I’m driving up from Texas. Plan is to leave the Houston area late in the day today, spend the night somewhere past Fort Worth, then drive the rest of the way from there, arriving in Wyoming sometime late tomorrow evening (hopefully in front of the heaviest snow), then hunt Thursday-Sunday. I’ve really enjoyed following along with all the hunts being updated real time this year, so I’ll try to post updates each night for those who want to follow along.

I’ll start with a picture of last year’s souvenir—I shot a tiny buck, but big enough to make two skinning knives out of—one for me and one for my hunting buddy. They turned out about as well as I could have hoped for someone who had never made a knife before.


View attachment 116510

Forgot to add. One of my backup plans for sleep to / from Wyoming was Airbnb in Childress, Tx that looked good. The rock house I think it was called. Timing didn’t work out for me but looked clean, cheap and close to Hwy.

 

[bts09]

Drove through a little bit of snow on the very tail end of the trip, but nothing too bad so far here in Wyoming. Hopefully the roads will be open tomorrow and we can get after it.

 

[LCH]

Drove through a little bit of snow on the very tail end of the trip, but nothing too bad so far here in Wyoming. Hopefully the roads will be open tomorrow and we can get after it.

Have fun, and stay out of trouble out there!

 

[Buffs35]

Be safe, shoot straight.

 

[bts09]

So first thing, the snow. Mostly a non event. The unit we were in got less than an inch. It's cold. Really cold. But for folks coming to east and central Wyoming this week, you'll be fine.

Ok. The hunt. Started the day in a new part of the unit that we didn't hunt last year. And we made the SAME MISTAKE we made last year. We were driving through the one road in that part of the unit, about to get out to hike, when we startled a herd of 6 antelope less than 100 yards away. And just like last year, we were unprepared to get out, load, and shoot. And by the time we were ready, they were long gone. It's ok, we learned our lesson for real this time (more on that below).

Because it was so stinking cold (didn't get above 23), we drove more than we usually would. Around noon we did a nice long hike into the area where I shot a buck last year, but didn't see anything other than a couple of cows. Honestly, on the day, did not see as many as I would have thought.

After the hike, we got back into the truck to head to get some late lunch. I had pulled around a corner when I spotted three antelope beneath a bluff about 200 yards away. The buck was not a shooter, but we've got a ton of doe tags. I told my buddy in the backseat to hand me the gun and the magazine, and I got out and quickly walked around behind the truck to get set up for a shot--we were ready--whole thing took less than ten seconds this time. I shot the closest of the two does, she took a few steps and dropped.

Now this is where I can't understand antelope. The other two just stood there. So I yelled at my buddy Matt to get out of the truck, he quickly got set up, and dropped the other doe. The antelope we saw earlier bolted almost immediately upon seeing us, but these didn't seem to care that we had just shot one of them. I just don't understand these critters.

By the time we got them both quartered, it was pushing 4:30pm. By far the easiest pack out ever--we pulled the truck right up to them. We grabbed a quick bite, spent another hour hiking one little section of the unit, then called it a day. Sorry, in the haste completely forgot to snap any pictures. We'll do better on that front tomorrow.

 

[bts09]

Day 2: A long, long hike

Day 2 was always going to be our “long hike” day. The unit we were hunting has a ton of BLM land in a huge chunk, but it’s only legally accessible (assuming you don’t have permission to cross private) from two places, and neither of those places has road access. So if you want to get into the heart of the unit, you have to walk. A lot.

Our plan was to get there at legal shooting light and hike in and hope to see antelope. We had not had a chance to scout the area, mostly because you have to hike quite a bit before you can get to a decent vantage point.

Less than thirty minutes after we started the hike, we spotted a small buck and a doe on the ridgeline to our right. They were curious and came to within 120 yards. At this point, our goal for the day was one doe and at least one buck. We discussed passing on the doe, but ultimately, we decided to get set up for the shot. Garrett took her at 120 and dropped her immediately.



After we got the doe quartered, we decided it made more sense to go back to the truck (we were only about a half mile out) to drop it off rather than hike the rest of the day with 40 extra pounds.

While Garrett was making that hike, a nice herd crossed the ridge in front of me at about 800 yards. I tried to move fast to get set up for a shot and got a chance at a super buck at 510 yards, and…whiffed. I just couldn’t get steady enough and shot right over him. He bailed, along with the rest of the herd.

When Garrett got back, we started what felt like the longest hike of my life. We went about 6 miles into the unit. We saw a few antelope here and there but really nothing we thought we could get close enough to. Here's an idea of the terrain.



At about 1pm (after we had now hiked deep into the unit), we spotted a small herd about a mile and a half away. At that distance we had no idea if there were any good bucks in it, but we figured that was the best chance we were going to get, so we started hiking in a line that we thought would intercept them as they moved south across the unit.

The topography in this unit is rolling hills ending in fairly steep little ravines, so it’s hard to see what’s right in front of you (because there’s a hill and a valley in the way). When we got to where we thought they were going, we stashed our packs and moved up onto the highest ridge we could find. We were as sneaky about it as we know how to be.

Sure enough, the little herd had moved where we thought they would. But bonus, on the hill just next to them was a much larger herd of about 20 antelope.

There were no “trophy” potential bucks in there, but there were a couple good ones for sure. So, I left the guys up on the hill (it was about 500 yards to the bigger herd and I had already missed one of those shots today) and quickly ran around through a ravine to a closer hill. I crawled then slithered up the hill behind a sage bush, trying to keep the bush between me and the antelope the whole time. Seemed to work great. I got set up for a shot at 200 yards and scoped for a couple of minutes before deciding to pull the trigger on what I thought was the largest buck in the herd. I really don’t think they ever saw me, or if they did, they didn’t care I was there.

Here he is. Not huge, but the biggest one there was and a heck of a lot of work to get him, which felt really great.



We de-boned in the field and then started the (very long) hike out. My OnX tells me, all told, this day was a 16.2 mile trek. It felt every bit of that.

 

[bts09]

Day 3: Last hurrah

So we had decided after day two that we only wanted one more buck. We had three doe tags left between us as well, but each of us now had a doe in the bag and no one particularly needed the additional meat (I’ll find the link on here to the place I can donate the tags now that I’m home). In fairness, we had really only applied for two doe tags each to make sure we got one (based on odds for this unit).

We started the day on top of a ridge looking over some rolling hills. We saw a decent little group of antelope, and they looked like they were moving into a gulley that we could approach. But we also saw two other hunters out in the field. And even though we thought we could intercept the antelope before they got to the other hunters, they were moving that way, and we didn’t want to risk messing up someone else’s hunt. So we glassed them for a little longer, then looked for a new place to hunt.

There was a small area that we had scouted on day one where we scared some antelope that had a good road through it, so we headed there. From the highway, we spotted a good group of antelope just inside the public boundary beneath some hills.

Our thinking was, we could probably drive past them on the internal unit road without spooking them, then park out of sight, hike around (about a half mile), and get up on top of the hills that they were feeding under. We figured if we could get onto the hills without being noticed, we would have a clear shot and probably not spook them.

Again, plan worked well. We got around to the hills without giving our location away (despite the darned prairie dogs yelling at us the whole time). Garrett got set up for a shot. Problem was, we only saw one really small buck in the group.

He decided to go ahead and take the shot and made a great one at 189 yards downhill.



This one was substantially easier than the day before—I could drive the truck to within 300 yards.

We called it a hunt after that, everyone very satisfied with the experience.

 

[bts09]

Postscript

This was a great trip for all three of us. After last year, where we really didn’t get a ton of opportunities on antelope, this felt very different. We saw a lot more herds/large groups of antelope, and there were several times where we could have easily taken more if we wanted to.

Lots of lessons learned this trip as well, but one thing I noticed was how much the hunt last year helped us prepare for this year. For instance, we knew how skittish antelope can be. Sometimes they aren’t, and just stand there while you shoot, but sometimes they won’t let you get within 1000 yards. Knowing that, we approached our stalks much more deliberately and carefully.

It was also nice to have first-hand knowledge of the unit. I was able to be much more aware and spend a lot more time scanning for antelope because I didn’t have to constantly look at my OnX to learn/stay within the boundaries, even though they’re pretty tight in many areas of this unit.

I left my skull in Wyoming to have a European mount done (I’m a big fan of those and my wife finds them less offensive). I processed the first of my two antelope myself the day after I got home—here’s a picture of what most of that looks like.



Again, a huge thanks to all the folks on here who have shared their insights and knowledge with me over the years. It’s a great forum, and I hope it stays that way for a long time to come.

 

[thusby]

Looks like you had one of those hunts where everything comes together in the correct order. Nice looking animals.

 

[Jape]

Very cool and a great reminder of how valuable prior experience can be. Thanks for sharing!

 

[Cutlass]

Looked like a fun hunt. Nothing like chasing antelope!

 

[Focus]

Seems anything can cause backups for miles.

And.....nothing at all can cause backups for miles! Damndest thing I ever saw. Course I’m from Idaho where more than ten cars backed up at a stoplight counts as a traffic jam to me.

 

[Focus]

Nice hunt write-up. Sounds like you guys had a lot of fun and got to take home some quality meat.

So a couple of questions.....did you camp, hotel or airbnb? Also, what taxidermist did you use for the euro? When will you see the finished product?

 

[Focus]

And also, really cool idea on the knife handles too!