Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Tell me about your DIY Wyoming Antelope Hunts

My two friends and I are planning an Antelope hunt in Wyoming for 2011. It will be the first out of state hunt for any of us, and we'll be driving over from Oregon. I've been reading everything I can get my hands on and been looking on the Wyoming F&G website for what units to put in for, etc. but what I'd like to hear is how others have done it. What was your plan? How did it work out? What went well, and what would you do differently?

To give you an idea of our priorities for this trip, we plan on bringing five coolers and no tape measure. We'll each be buying a buck tag and at least one doe tag, perhaps more depending on the unit and how much meat we each need by this time next year.

As for rifles, I'm taking a pre-war Model 70 in 270. 130 Nosler BT's over 59gr of H4831sc. Scope to be determined; I'm pretty comfortable with this setup.

I live about 100 miles from "my" WY antelope unit.

sometimes I drive from home each day.

sometimes I stay in a hotel in town.

sometimes I car-camp.

if you plan on barreling out there 1/2 hour before dawn, you're going to be sitting there for a couple hours waiting for the antelope to wake up and start moving!

It's pretty easy once you settle on where to go.

First time we did it, we left the house about noon on the last weekend of the season. I didn't have a tag, but a neighbor talked my friend into buying two tags, said he had a landowner contact, then backed out. I decided to go along for the ride, as I had at least hunted them a few times in when I lived in Montana. He was kinda clueless.

Anyway, had a BLM map of the area from a previous deer hunt, and sure enough, first piece of public land we hit had about 60 antelope on it! That one was quick and easy.

Talked to the landowner contact, who turned out to be part of a public access agreement with Wyoming G&F (Hunter Management Area) slept in the truck in her yard.
Next morning, took a few minutes to find some goats, stalk took about an hour. Hunt over, made it home before noon. 23 hours, two goats.

Now we sleep in campers at a KOA, have a few more guys, head out each morning with two hunters per truck.
One guy has a real nice collapsable tripod for skinning and deboning the antelope. That might be a neat idea to add because there will be NO trees. I usually hunt the end of October, so it doesn't usually get too hot.
Also will want a bipod.

I've posted this before, but it's pertinent so I'll repeat:

I have a "truck cooler" that's 48x48" that I made and fill with four 6gallon ice blocks. it'll keep 4 antelope below 40* for at least 7 days, even if it's 90* outside. (It's gotten a lotta miles of use and is pretty patched up, but still works!)

Cool, what do you use for insulation?

4x8 Styrofoam sheets, one 2" layer and one 1" layer all around, with the lid edges offset.

it was probably $50 total 10 years ago when I made it but I bet I've spent close to that in duct tape trying to keep it going

covering the jugs + dry ice with leftover sheets (halving the cooler) cuts down on deadspace prior to needed use and extends ice life greatly

I like it.
I don't have a very good picture of it, but here's that little portable tripod and critter winch. Beats the heck out of doing everything on the ground, keeps the meat cleaner.

I've taken four of them in SD. If I go this year I will take kneepads and leather gloves. I'm tired of picking cactus needles out of my knees and hands when I stalk them.

Oh, hey that reminds me. I bought a pair of "turkey hunting pants" on sale at Sportsmen's Warehouse prior to last hunting season. They are sage brushy camo, but with removable foam knee pads built into them.

Last week, I drove up I 25 and out the main road west of Gillette (escapes me at the moment). Saw antelope about every mile or so. I think most of that is private but there has to be BLM land with lopes on it somewhere handy...........

As an easterner I did several DIY hunts in the 1990's. Hunted on public land out of Rock Springs. I believe it is difficult to draw there now. What I want to tell you is that on all these trips we saw hardly any deer. Lots of antelope and even a desert elk herd and wild horses but no deer. Besides that the locals don't seem to care much about the antelope hunters but are very protective of their deer. Just do the antelope hunt and bring extra ammo for the prairie dogs.

I'm with UL. Meat care is essential with these guys. Consider butchering them yourself, immediately and then have a place in town picked out that can flash freeze them for you.

Your choice of rifle and bullet are probably the absolute least important issue. Anything will work. Open sights on a .30-30 Savage junker have worked for me.

I've got tags for 4 WYgoats this year.

Brent

We'll be doing our own butchering. Thanks for the tip on flash freezing. Does that have any effect on taste when the meat later thaws?

UL: Neat set up, I'll have to give that some thought.

Exbiologist: That's a neat piece of equipment. That'd work great in some parts of Oregon as well because sometimes there are trees, but they're just not thick enough to support weight or the branches are too far up to be of any use.

Flash freezing doesn't add anything per se, but what you don't want is to put your antelope in a weak freezer, stacked too deep and after 3 days, you come to take it home and find that some of it is not frozen even yet.

Flash freezing just gets the job done right quickly before anything untoward can happen. And, if you are headed home in a day later, you can be sure it is as ready for the trip as you can make it.

I've done it both ways, and I can tell you that there is no comparison! Esp. if the weather is running a bit hot.

If you are going to kill a lot of animals, and you are driving a pickup, you can take a variation on Lefty's cooler and to the following.

Buy some 2" or thicker foamboard insulation, the blue or pink stuff. Put it on the bottom of your truck. Add half of a large plastic tarp. Then your meat. Then fold the other half of the tarp over the meat, add bags or blocks of ice. Add another tarp.

On top of the whole thing, put your sleeping bags - two or three or more. Then cover some way to keep wind and rain off.

Drive like hell!

Brent

Thanks Brent, this is definitely a meat hunt as well as a fun hunt so we'll be spending some time figuring out how to get the meat back to Oregon as fresh as possible.

only way to get good speed goat meat is cool down the meat quick....properly cared for goat meat is better than deer or elk IMHO......poorly cared for is darn near inedible.....get the meat on ice ASAP, dont let them flop around in the back of the pickup all day on a warm day and expect them to taste good.....we shoot them and basically just start getting the meat off the carcass and dont wait....can just quarter them and such, no need to do the fine butchering but get that hide off and the meat on ice....

And Pronghorn is some of the best wild game I've eaten. My wife agrees.

You can build a fairly simple hitch-mount hoist. I made another with a boat winch that also breaks down for storage, but I don't have a photo of it.

You might find THIS thread to be of interest.