While we have had snow pack in the high country, near as I can tell, there hasn't been much winter in the lowlands throughout Wyoming, with not much snow that lasted and little cold weather. That should remove or at least minimize the effects of winter on horn growth in most areas.
When there is a bad winter, what usually die are fawns, yearlings, and does that have had fawns and aren't in good shape because they haven't recovered from nursing fawns, in that order. Those are the does that look so skinny with the ratty-looking hides in the early part of the hunting season because they haven't completely shed their old hair.
After a bad winter, the antelope hunting is usually pretty good for a couple of years because the Game and Fish Department tries to maintain a high proportion of bucks in the population after the season. With 40 bucks:100 does in the herd at the end of the hunting season, you should be able to still find some trophy bucks even during a late season hunt. But, after a bad winter you have lost three age classes, so there will be less bucks and does for about three years until the animals that died during the bad winter are replaced. Trophy quality will be affected until the bucks get to be 4 years old. That's why hunters always say the hunting wasn't as bad as they thought it might be the year after a bad winter, then grumble for three or four years afterward. The inevitable reduction in licenses following bad winters is designed to maintain some good bucks and speed up recovery by shooting less animals. Herds in good shape on good habitat recover fairly quickly. After the winter of 1978-79 antelope numbers were higher than before the winter by the fall of 1981. After the winter of 1992-93 following several years of drought, it took herds four years to recover. Unfortunately, nothing can be done about the weather.
