Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game A heads up to those who are planning to hunt eastern Wyoming this week..

Dewd nice work! What an awesome family event!

Themselves good eatin right there; thanks for sharing!

I believe it - lucky for us we had not been there before or 'lope hunting anywhere so the fact that we could travel 1/2 way across the country and fill 3 buck tags was pretty cool. I guess the fact that we did not connect on any doe when we had 2 more tags each helps to confirm the numbers. Sure wouldn't mind having a few more in the freezer based on what we've eaten so far. Fortunately we've got several tags for Whitetails back here in PA. Can't complain much about the eatability of our corn and soybean fed deer either. God news is, we'll likely not starve over winter.

Enjoyed your country and Antelope hunting quite a bit. I'd like to think we'll do it again. You guys out west are blessed with a lot of hunting and outdoor opportunity we don't have here. Particularly people competing for the resource. We were warned about opening day madness and we saw a little of it on display but even at that, compared to a PA deer opener, the fields were empty. I'd have preferred to avoid the first few days but figured it was best chance for my Dad with limited mobility.

Saw more bucks this trip than on any previous trip. Saw 7 in one bachelor group then, a few minutes and a couple miles away, we spotted another herd of about 12 antelope. Knocked on the rancher's door and asked permission to take some does. His answer was "Sure, if there are any left." When I settled down behind the scope I found two does and lots of horns.

Every animal we took was on private, non-walk-in areas. Not one rancher turned us down or asked for trespass fees, which I thought was very generous of them. It wasn't much but when someone got an animal we gave the the rancher the landowner coupon along with $20.

Antelope in the walk-in areas and public land were pretty scarce.

populations are way down from 2 years ago...EHD hit them hard

I think the drought hit the antelope harder than EHD. I also think that in our basin here the antelope numbers are up, due to antelope migrating in from other parts of the country. We're seeing some bucks with horns and body conformation more typical of what is common in the Red Desert area.
Fawn recruitment was particularly low this year here. Lots of does had no fawns with them at all by mid July. So that tells us they either lost a lot of fawns to predation, or the birth rate was particularly low. A combination of both is extremely likely as most game animals body condition coming out of the winter into the still meager offerings of the spring due to the lack of moisture, would be a good scenario for many winter fetus abortions.
The few elk that were hanging around here prior to season opener had about a 50% calf crop and that's way low for this herd.

I saw more Antelope North of Gillette than I saw for sure the previous two years. Not just Does either. Bucks antlers looked well also.

I came through No. WY yesterday and saw maybe 500 goats from above Sheridan to Cheyenne. Not nearly as many as I saw last year coming back from my ID trips. Yea and I did see hunters running their trucks slinging mud off the 2 tracks in the Sheridan, Buffalo, Kaycee area state/blm lands, that tweaked me as it was/is still wet/muddy & no respect obviously. 2 were out of state trucks & 1 Wy truck.
Saw the most in the nice green crop circles chomping away.

Just so youse guys know...even after that dang blizzard the rattle snakes are still out. I encountered 2 today...man I hate them things

Yup they were out and about yesterday, and in all sorts of pizzy mood.

Took a hunting pard's son out yesterday as this is his first year hunting antelope. We got him out of school only to have that blizzard hit. Poor kid's luck that weekend and the one after with crummy weather. Found a herd with several nice bucks yesterday, but the antelope had bunched up due to the storm and were skittish as could be. Taking kids hunting is the best, but frustrating when you do your best to get them in position and it doesn't work out. We stalked that herd twice but it took all day and too many eyes and noses to get by. Today we woke up to rain. One more weekend...I'll eat my tag in order to get him a buck.

Longrange forecast looks decent, so it might just work out that you'll both fill out.
I guess I'ld best start looking for a nice fat dry doe, time is getting away from me, and I already missed out on being able to shoot a buck.