RiverBottomBowHunter

I'm thinking about an antelope DIY hunt. Does anyone have any ideas? Any information would be great.


Thanks ahead of time.

ShatoDavis

I've just planned one for myself and some friends. What do you want to know. You can get the applications at wyoming's game and fish site. You can get the drawing stats for the units at the same site. there are several with 100% draw success. Especially around Gillete. The trick is finding a place to hunt. The areas with large amounts of public land are harder draws. The areas with high draw succes are mostly Private land. You can call the Game and fish substations and they have land owner lists. they will email these to you and you start calling those folks and ask about hunting. Most will want to be paid a tresspass fee, though some allow hunting for free. You should find a place to hunt before you apply for a certain unit. There are also walk in areas that can be found on the G&F site as well. These are areas you can apply for permission to hunt for free. Fill free to ask any more questions, I tryto help all I can.

RiverBottomBowHunter

Thanks alot for the info, I'm sure I will have some more questions.

I know canyou look at success rates in a certain unit to decide which one to hunt, but, when you start calling landowners, how do you know there are lopes' on their ranch?

Alsatian

DIY hunt is very easy for pronghorn. Wyoming pronghorn antelope Unit 23 near Gillette is commonly undersubscribed, so if you apply in this area you have about a 100% of draw. Don't expect to make the Boone and Crockett book in Unit 23, however. Call the Buffalo field office of the Wyoming Department of Fish and Game and ask for a list of landowners who accept trespass fees to hunt their land. Call these people up. There will be a wide range of propositions that you will get -- some more expensive some less expensive, some with better chance for marginally larger horns others less chance of marginally larger horns. You can easily stay in a hotel in Gillette and hunt on ranch land nearby that you have paid a trespass for and have a very high probability -- 90% -- of taking a pronghorn. There are a gazillion pronghorn antelope around Gillette, and I'm not kidding. Driving out to the ranch where I paid a trespass fee, there were pronghorns walking in the ditch beside the road, next to a welding shop. I paid $100/gun for two days of hunting on a ranch near Gillette. My son and I hunted and both took pronghorn. My son took a buck his first day. I took a doe on the second day (I could have waited and tried to mount another stalk on a buck, but I was in a hurry to finish my hunt and get on to some other business -- I wasn't hunting for big horns anyway, or I wouldn't have been in unit 23). The non-resident any sex license is about $237. For a non-resident doe license the fee is about $40, maybe less.

Use a flat shooting rifle. .243, .25-06, .270, 7 mm Mag, .30-06, .300 Win Mag all would be suitable and similar unnamed cartridges. .30-30 probably not the best choice. Practice so you can be proficient at longer ranges, but odds are you can get a shot at less than 200 yards if you work at stalking these animals. You don't have to get out into the field to hunt early. Unlike whitetail deer, the pronghorn are going to be out there when you arrive at 9:30 AM. Getting in the field can only have one effect, to have you possibly scare off the pronghorn that you butt into in the dark.

The way you will hunt them is to identify a specific animal you wish to shoot from long range -- 600 yards or more, typically -- and then stalk within shooting range. This is not a physically difficult hunt. If you blow one stalk, don't fret. Other animals will come around that you can hunt later that day or the next. Since you areNOT going to nail a trophy in this unit anyway, one pronghorn is pretty much no better than the next.

Pronghorns look very cool, in my opinion. While the bucks in unit 23 will not set any records, this doesn't mean they don't look cool and it isn't worth getting a head mounted. We mounted my son's buck pronghorn head whose horns measured 13.5" in the field (12.5" at home -- I guess these horns shrink somewhat as they dry). This is in no way a big or noteworthy pronghorn. But the head still looks very cool and magnificent hanging in our living room.

Have a plan for how you will care for the meat. Often the weather is warmish during pronghorn hunts, and you may wish to take a couple of bags of ice in an ice chest with you to the field. You can field dress the animal, put the animal in your truck (or your SUV with a cheap plastic tarp to protect your SUV from blood), and tuck the two bags of ice into the body cavity. This will help cool the meat quickly until you get to a place to take care of the meat. If you are going to process the meat yourself, you may wish to get it hung and skinned promptly to assist the cooling process. Whatever . . . have your meat care planned out in advance. 90% success rates means you are almost certainly going to score. Pronghorn meat tastes very good if properly cared for. Before I hunted pronghorn I had heard stories to the contrary, but my experience with my son's buck and my doe do not bear those negative stories out. The meat was IMMEDIATELY preferred by my wife and older daughter to our venison, and they are tough judges of food.

RiverBottomBowHunter

Great info!

Thanks a ton!!

Carpmaster

DIY hunts for goats, we did one a few years ago and all got nice goats....i called the WY biologists and did some research....the goats were easy to find and were plentiful....Good Luck!

RiverBottomBowHunter

Thanks! I'm going to start calling places today.

You guys are great!

ShatoDavis

well I suppose you don't know for certain that they are there. All you can do is ask the rancher and use your own judgement on his honesty. I know this much though, that in the units around gillette ie 23, 24,etc that there are goats everywhere. If a rancher in one of those units told me that he had lots of them I would most likely believe him. If he told me that he had "big" lopes I would be hesitant. Those units are not known for large bucks, though some certainly do reside there.

Garminator

I hunted area 22 (Wyoming) for antelope last year and I shot a decent buck with a wide spread. Like previously stated. most shots will be long. My first shot onmy goat was at about 400 yds and I came up way short at which time the herd of goats ran a few hundred yards. I was then able to stalk them from behind a small ridge which gave me a shot at about 180 yds at which time I corked him!!!...good luck on your hunt..

RiverBottomBowHunter

Thanks for the replies, lots of good info!

Now--- if any of you ever come to Illinois DIY whitetail, Hopefully I can return the favor.