WY Antelope Questions

[therook]

Trying to plan a antelope hunt to WY. Have zero points...yes I know that isn't ideal, I get it. Just looking to see if anyone would have any valuable info a rookie could use and what direction I should be looking into finding a good draw zone. Also, I'm willing to pay a trespass fee onto private and was wondering if theres good places to find landowners that allow it. Montana isn't out of question either. Thanks.

 

[Fullfan]

Several years ago the daughter and I hunted unit 29. Never applied or been there. Stayed in Douglas and killed two bucks North of there. we were gone from home 4 days. Lots of places to hunt, have a OX chip so you know where you can hunt.

 

[jdubrr]

gohunt.com has all the info you need

 

[bobr1]

https://wgfd.wyo.gov/Hunting/Drawing-Odds

 

[ClearCreek]

A lot has changed regarding antelope hunting in Wyoming. Hunt areas that just a few years ago would never sell out are now draw only areas. Even doe/fawn licenses sell out, something unheard of several years ago.

This is especially true for northeast Wyoming.


ClearCreek

 

[Oregonmuley]

A lot has changed regarding antelope hunting in Wyoming. Hunt areas that just a few years ago would never sell out are now draw only areas. Even doe/fawn licenses sell out, something unheard of several years ago.

This is especially true for northeast Wyoming.


ClearCreek

What ClearCreek posted is 100% correct. 2020 will be my 12th trip to Wyoming to hunt antelope, have always hunted central area south of Buffalo. The units around there mostly have tough access public land but where easy to draw, in fact you had left over tags way into the season. About 4-5 years ago that all changed. Now pretty much every unit sells out including the doe tags.

My advise is first pick a part of the state you think looks interesting, then go out on the Wyoming Fish & Game website and start looking at the Hunt Planner page to see what it says about the units. From there you can quickly figure out what you can draw with zero points - just know it will be units with a lot of private but you can have a good hunt if you do your homework first.

For additional info don't just post on the innernet, get on the phone and call the local bio's assigned to those units and ask questions - again do your homework don't just call them and say hey give me a spot to kill stuff - they will be much more willing to give a guy info if they think you already tried to find some areas on your own. Also contact the local game warden, they can sometimes be a wealth of knowledge about little spots you might miss or overlook but can hold animals. Thats how I got some intel last year - local warden confirmed a section of land had antelope if you got there early and got after it. He was right

 

[ClearCreek]

Oregonmuley:

Did you process those antelope yourself or did you take them to Bighorn Meats in Buffalo?

ClearCreek

 

[Oregonmuley]

ClearCreek,
I used to do all the processing myself - I stay at the KC RV in Kaycee and if you stay there they have a big shop you can use with a place to hang your animals and then nice tables to cut everything up. Nowadays I'm lazy and just want to get back out and hunt since I hunt solo 99% of the time. Anyway, sorry for the ramble but in Kaycee I drop them off at the Siesta Meats - Mitch runs the place and will do pretty much whatever you want. Plus he is way cheaper than Bighorn, I've been told they are good but expensive.

 

[ClearCreek]

Oregonmuley:

Reason I asked is if you did take your critters to Bighorn Meats we may have crossed paths. I used to spend the first 3-4 days of the hunting season (October 1-3 or 4) at Bighorn Meats recording hunter harvest data.

I talked to a lot of hunters from Oregon (and Washington) over the years.

Randy runs a good operation for hunters there at the RV Park in Kaycee.

ClearCreek

 

[Jimss]

More antelope mean more tags which is directly tied to winterkill, predators, disease, drought, fawn recruitment, etc. Pray for another mild winter! So far it looks fairly rough in some locations. If you look at historic harvest records there aren't near as many tags issued in recent years as there were a few years back. To add to the difficulty, there are more nonres applying each year for fewer tags. Antelope numbers have increased in some areas and dropped in others due to the factors listed above. There are getting to be fewer and fewer tags issued left over tags available as more and more hunters find it difficult to draw tags. Unfortunately there are fewer tags issued that take 1 to 2 pref pts to draw.

 

[boutdoors]

The main reason that antelope and for that matter deer tags have been so difficult to get the last few years is that several years ago WY pushed back the application deadline to the end of May. The old deadline used to be mid March.