Wyoming Hunt with Aliyah (Oct 1 & 2)
My daughter, Aliyah (9 y.o. girl), and I left Minnesota for Wyoming on Wednesday, September 29, right after she got off the school bus. The plan was to drive to Wyoming by Thursday with enough time to check out a few spots, hunt the Opener on Friday and the first half of Saturday, harvest any antelope we could before driving back to Minnesota. We stayed the night in Mitchell, SD. Aliyah seemed to be coming down with a cold but seemed ready for the hunt. We got going the next day and made a quick stop at the Corn Palace in Mitchell and snapped a couple of photos. Aliyah enjoyed seeing it.
We saw our first couple groups of antelope near the Badlands as we drove on I 90. We stopped in Rapid City, SD for lunch and then headed on a route that would allow us to see some of the public land before our destination for the night in Wyoming. I was nervous as we were driving because we were not seeing any antelope in Wyoming.
Once we got off the major highway, we started seeing groups of antelope and the pressure was off. Aliyah seemed to like looking for the groups (for a while).
I still have a hard time figuring out why Antelope are in one spot or another. They seem to center around watering holes, and you may see a couple groups milling around within a couple miles of the hole. Other times they might be at the top of a large hill seemingly far away from water. This year, water seemed to be the key to finding the highest densities of antelope.
We finally got to our unit. Much of the initial area was private land with a couple spots of public. There were large spots of BLM land but it looked like they were doing a bunch of gas or oil drilling in those sections so we stayed away from those. There we warning signs stating hazards in those areas. However, we did see a huntable antelope on a couple tracks. Aliyah and I were really excited and marked the spots. We checked a few other spots and saw two or three other groups of antelope we could have hunted the next day. Sure, we were seeing antelope on a few small tracts of public land but I was worried about it being overrun with hunters the next day. A major issue I was starting to see was that access to public land was going to be a problem. All the roads around there were marked private/no trespassing. Private land blocked in many of the major BLM or WY State land except for a few spots.
We got to our destination in Wyoming and got our luggage and hunting supplies in the hotel, and went to dinner. Aliyah’s cold seemed to be getting worse. We talked at dinner about how exciting it would be to get a couple antelope the next day. I learned that Aliyah had some close contact with another student that had COVID at her volleyball practice a few days before on Tuesday. She seemed like she had a mild cold at this point and I wasn’t concerned (FYI I don’t think she had COVID because it quickly ran its course and was a typical cold). Aliyah went to sleep early that night.
I spent much of the evening marking county roads on my OnX map so that I knew for sure what roads were private vs public. Many of the roads marked with private signs were actually on county roads and I still don’t understand how one could be denied access on those roads if the county maintains it. Maybe the county gave up control of the road but still had it marked on their website as county.
We got going early the next morning. The plan was to get to one of the spots we marked the day before around sunup and see what we see. I did not want to push Aliyah too early or much because this was her first hunt and I wanted her to feel as comfortable as possible. She seemed to be feeling the effects of the cold and she was dragging. I asked her if she was okay and she said she was and kept going. We made it to the first public land marked on the map but there were a couple hunters already there. This was the same story for the other two spots. I was really worried about getting an opportunity.
At this point, I realized that we only had a half tank of gas and that if we started really driving, we needed more gas. We headed back to town and got some gas and reassessed the plan. We decided to drive deeper into the unit and maybe hunters had not gotten to some of the public land way up on a major road in the unit. This would be a long drive though. We headed up the road and started seeing antelope, but they were all on private land. This was very frustrating. It was like watching our cat, Charlie, stare at birds out the window. Just sad.
For this trip, I had a heavy bull barrel Remington 700 in .308. with an aftermarket stock. I had a 6-9” bipod on it. It was loaded with some Federal 150gr Power Shok soft points. The gun was more set up as a bench gun for me to mess around on. I have a Vortex LRP 3.5-14x scope on it. I don’t shoot a lot, but I intended to do more of that when I originally bought the gun. When I dialed in this gun, I got groups that were under .75” with the Federals without any real work on its. I told myself that my range was 300 yards in a resting position.
I was extremely confident that the gun would do its part. I had originally thought about using my new 7mm Rem Mag in a Savage 110 Long Range Hunter that I got on special at the end of last year but I waited to the last moment to get it sighted in and when I took it to the range it was throwing shots around in a 6” circle at 100 yards after 6-7 shots. I had zero confidence in it. It has a Vortex Razor HD LHT 3-15x50 MRAD scope on top of it. I knew my shooting wasn’t off because my 308 was gnats on so I assumed the barrel heated up and wasn’t going to be accurate until it cooled down. The scope was awesome, so this gun will be pretty sweet when I have time to get it dialed in.
We kept driving and there was a small block of BLM land that I saw a rarely used road went to. As we drove on this road, we spotted a buck antelope, but it was on private. I stopped on the road about a quarter of a mile from the BLM land and got out with my rifle to scout it out. Aliyah stayed in the car because I wanted her to rest as much as possible. On this piece of land, there were some hidden spots that I could peek over and maybe see an antelope on the other side. This was my first opportunity to get a feel for the area. There were clumps of sage everywhere with small low cacti in bunches. It was hard not to step on them. Other than that, it was really easy to walk. There were large mounds that had very rocky features at the top on the NW square and one rocky drumlin on the southwest section. There were no pronghorn there but I did see varying stages of aged pronghorn poop along with hoof prints. The hoofprints looked very similar to whitetail deer. You could see where they recently pawed areas on top of the recent rain sign. If someone had enough patience, you could post up on one of the hills with a good view and wait for a group of pronghorn to walk into range. That seemed like a last resort and probably would not have worked with hunting with Aliyah (what kid wants to sit there for a day at the off chance for a shot?). Driving and spot and stalk was much more exciting.
I got back in the car and turned us around. We saw the same pronghorn on private again as we drove out of the area. We continued driving up the major road in the unit which was surrounded by private until you get pretty far in which had a large chunk of BLM. There was a camper and a wall tent set up on this BLM and it was crawling with trucks and hunters. What appeared to be a continuation of the major road in the unit was actually gated and not conducive to driving on with my Ford Explorer. I saw another road with a couple trucks posted on it and didn’t want to even bother going that way. I was pretty negative at this point.
I passed a Game Warden with a really nice mustache and chatted a couple seconds with him. I wish I had better questions for him but I just made a comment about access being tough. I knew it said that on the website but other folks posted if you keep at it you can find something in this unit. I asked him if it was worth it calling up landowners if I see anything on their property and he said it wasn’t likely worth it. He confirmed one of the other trucks parked near us, the hunter had just gotten an antelope on public land so there was still hope.
My daughter, Aliyah (9 y.o. girl), and I left Minnesota for Wyoming on Wednesday, September 29, right after she got off the school bus. The plan was to drive to Wyoming by Thursday with enough time to check out a few spots, hunt the Opener on Friday and the first half of Saturday, harvest any antelope we could before driving back to Minnesota. We stayed the night in Mitchell, SD. Aliyah seemed to be coming down with a cold but seemed ready for the hunt. We got going the next day and made a quick stop at the Corn Palace in Mitchell and snapped a couple of photos. Aliyah enjoyed seeing it.
We saw our first couple groups of antelope near the Badlands as we drove on I 90. We stopped in Rapid City, SD for lunch and then headed on a route that would allow us to see some of the public land before our destination for the night in Wyoming. I was nervous as we were driving because we were not seeing any antelope in Wyoming.
Once we got off the major highway, we started seeing groups of antelope and the pressure was off. Aliyah seemed to like looking for the groups (for a while).
I still have a hard time figuring out why Antelope are in one spot or another. They seem to center around watering holes, and you may see a couple groups milling around within a couple miles of the hole. Other times they might be at the top of a large hill seemingly far away from water. This year, water seemed to be the key to finding the highest densities of antelope.
We finally got to our unit. Much of the initial area was private land with a couple spots of public. There were large spots of BLM land but it looked like they were doing a bunch of gas or oil drilling in those sections so we stayed away from those. There we warning signs stating hazards in those areas. However, we did see a huntable antelope on a couple tracks. Aliyah and I were really excited and marked the spots. We checked a few other spots and saw two or three other groups of antelope we could have hunted the next day. Sure, we were seeing antelope on a few small tracts of public land but I was worried about it being overrun with hunters the next day. A major issue I was starting to see was that access to public land was going to be a problem. All the roads around there were marked private/no trespassing. Private land blocked in many of the major BLM or WY State land except for a few spots.
We got to our destination in Wyoming and got our luggage and hunting supplies in the hotel, and went to dinner. Aliyah’s cold seemed to be getting worse. We talked at dinner about how exciting it would be to get a couple antelope the next day. I learned that Aliyah had some close contact with another student that had COVID at her volleyball practice a few days before on Tuesday. She seemed like she had a mild cold at this point and I wasn’t concerned (FYI I don’t think she had COVID because it quickly ran its course and was a typical cold). Aliyah went to sleep early that night.
I spent much of the evening marking county roads on my OnX map so that I knew for sure what roads were private vs public. Many of the roads marked with private signs were actually on county roads and I still don’t understand how one could be denied access on those roads if the county maintains it. Maybe the county gave up control of the road but still had it marked on their website as county.
We got going early the next morning. The plan was to get to one of the spots we marked the day before around sunup and see what we see. I did not want to push Aliyah too early or much because this was her first hunt and I wanted her to feel as comfortable as possible. She seemed to be feeling the effects of the cold and she was dragging. I asked her if she was okay and she said she was and kept going. We made it to the first public land marked on the map but there were a couple hunters already there. This was the same story for the other two spots. I was really worried about getting an opportunity.
At this point, I realized that we only had a half tank of gas and that if we started really driving, we needed more gas. We headed back to town and got some gas and reassessed the plan. We decided to drive deeper into the unit and maybe hunters had not gotten to some of the public land way up on a major road in the unit. This would be a long drive though. We headed up the road and started seeing antelope, but they were all on private land. This was very frustrating. It was like watching our cat, Charlie, stare at birds out the window. Just sad.
For this trip, I had a heavy bull barrel Remington 700 in .308. with an aftermarket stock. I had a 6-9” bipod on it. It was loaded with some Federal 150gr Power Shok soft points. The gun was more set up as a bench gun for me to mess around on. I have a Vortex LRP 3.5-14x scope on it. I don’t shoot a lot, but I intended to do more of that when I originally bought the gun. When I dialed in this gun, I got groups that were under .75” with the Federals without any real work on its. I told myself that my range was 300 yards in a resting position.
I was extremely confident that the gun would do its part. I had originally thought about using my new 7mm Rem Mag in a Savage 110 Long Range Hunter that I got on special at the end of last year but I waited to the last moment to get it sighted in and when I took it to the range it was throwing shots around in a 6” circle at 100 yards after 6-7 shots. I had zero confidence in it. It has a Vortex Razor HD LHT 3-15x50 MRAD scope on top of it. I knew my shooting wasn’t off because my 308 was gnats on so I assumed the barrel heated up and wasn’t going to be accurate until it cooled down. The scope was awesome, so this gun will be pretty sweet when I have time to get it dialed in.
We kept driving and there was a small block of BLM land that I saw a rarely used road went to. As we drove on this road, we spotted a buck antelope, but it was on private. I stopped on the road about a quarter of a mile from the BLM land and got out with my rifle to scout it out. Aliyah stayed in the car because I wanted her to rest as much as possible. On this piece of land, there were some hidden spots that I could peek over and maybe see an antelope on the other side. This was my first opportunity to get a feel for the area. There were clumps of sage everywhere with small low cacti in bunches. It was hard not to step on them. Other than that, it was really easy to walk. There were large mounds that had very rocky features at the top on the NW square and one rocky drumlin on the southwest section. There were no pronghorn there but I did see varying stages of aged pronghorn poop along with hoof prints. The hoofprints looked very similar to whitetail deer. You could see where they recently pawed areas on top of the recent rain sign. If someone had enough patience, you could post up on one of the hills with a good view and wait for a group of pronghorn to walk into range. That seemed like a last resort and probably would not have worked with hunting with Aliyah (what kid wants to sit there for a day at the off chance for a shot?). Driving and spot and stalk was much more exciting.
I got back in the car and turned us around. We saw the same pronghorn on private again as we drove out of the area. We continued driving up the major road in the unit which was surrounded by private until you get pretty far in which had a large chunk of BLM. There was a camper and a wall tent set up on this BLM and it was crawling with trucks and hunters. What appeared to be a continuation of the major road in the unit was actually gated and not conducive to driving on with my Ford Explorer. I saw another road with a couple trucks posted on it and didn’t want to even bother going that way. I was pretty negative at this point.
I passed a Game Warden with a really nice mustache and chatted a couple seconds with him. I wish I had better questions for him but I just made a comment about access being tough. I knew it said that on the website but other folks posted if you keep at it you can find something in this unit. I asked him if it was worth it calling up landowners if I see anything on their property and he said it wasn’t likely worth it. He confirmed one of the other trucks parked near us, the hunter had just gotten an antelope on public land so there was still hope.