Wyoming antelope by car?

Making my first pronghorn hunt in a few weeks. Going to be hunting the walk in areas and maybe BLM around Lusk. I've gotten tons of valuable info from older posts, but still have a few questions. Is a truck or 4x4 a necessity or just really nice to have. Not sure my jeep has another 3000 mile trip in her. Everything will fit in my Honda, and it would save me a couple hundred $ in gas. Is that feasible? Also, how do I handle the carcasses? Leave them for the coyotes? I plan on boning out the goats in the field. Also any suggestions on walk-in land that allows camping would be great. I've got the walk-in maps and rules from the state, but local knowledge would be a plus. Thanks.

Also, I don't mind walking in several miles to avoid the crowds, or packing game out.

Great info. I've probably read every thread on the net with the words "Wyoming" and "antelope" so your words are not discouraging or surprising. Not really going for a trophy or to fill the freezer, just something I've always wanted to do. I picked The Lusk area after a lot of reading because it seemed a little less tricky for a first hunt than some other areas. I've scouted some of the walk in area maps next to satellite photos from Google earth. Seems like there is a good amount adjacent to highways. I may just leave my car in long-term parking at Denver or Cheyenne airports and rent a truck to get around in. I've only got a couple doe tags that were left overs. But I figured this would be a good way to get a little taste of it, and serve as a scouting trip for a bigger hunt next year. I've also been putting in a ton of time at the range. I shoot on every windy day I'm off

Sounds like a car is not worth the trouble. I do a lot of offshore fishing alone, so know about redundant safety systems. Am approaching this the same way. Gps, solar charger, EPLRB, check-ins, etc. Are 4*4 rentals readily available in that part of the country? They are nonexistent here.

I'm in unit 9 after the first 2 weeks. So hopefully the crowds will be gone and the goats will be a little less jumpy.

That's good stuff. Very funny. It looks like I can fly into Denver on Southwest for less than it will cost me to park my car at the airport, then rent an suv to drive for the week. That will free up a couple days to scout other areas for when I can draw an elk or mulie tag. They even allow dry ice on their flights and I can bring back the meat in some big soft sided ice chests for $100 per extra bag under 100#, or $50/bag for normal size luggage.

If I am able to just drive up to a couple of the wiley goats, club them on the head, and throw them in my truck, can I go somewhere and by one of the unsold buck tags or antlerless deer tags over the counter? I just have 2 doe tags, and I know that the buck tags are gone in area 9, but there are still some left in other areas. My dad said he would pay the baggage fees for some venison or cabrito (goat in Texican). If not another tag, any suggestions for inexpensive hunts or fishing? Maybe grouse or prairie dogs.

WAY overdue update

I apologize for not updating this thread after my trip last year, but just rejoined the community and thought I would share the results for anyone researching old threads.

Yes, antelope by car is very doable, and I encourage it for anyone who may be limited to this option.

MY hunt: I flew from TX to Denver, rented a Jeep Patriot, and drove into SE WY. This was actually cheaper than it would have been to drive my own vehicle from TX, and saved me about 30 hrs driving for the whole hunt.

I camped and hunted on BLM land in Unit 9 East of Lusk. It was late in the season (after Oct 15) and I only saw a couple of hunters on the whole drive in from Denver. I used some good GPS maps that showed public land and a Gazetteer. But the entrances to the BLM property were easy enough to find without them. And there was even fairly good signage on the 2 tracks leading in that marked private property.

I saw tons of goats and mulie does everywhere I went. The first morning I hiked around the the small hill top where I had camped and spotted some antelope in the basin below the ridge I was on. First lesson learned. Don't stroll up to the edge of a ridge. You are silhouetted against the sky and stick out like a sore thumb. The goats didn't care, as they were miles away, but group of mule deer let me know how stupid I was. They were leaving in a hurry. It was sooo cool though, and I didn't care. Those were the first in flesh animals I had ever seen of either species (except for the drive in), and the sun was barely up on my first day. I watched a big old doe shepard her little group over about four ridges, before pausing at the top of the last, waiting for the stragglers to catch up, and give me one last look to let me know just how stupid she though I was.

Lesson two: Those animals have super hero vision. All of this took place so far away that I didn't even know it was happening until I got my glass on them. I grew up hunting in pine forest thickets. I couldn't believe that you could spot game at those distances, and was even more surprised that they could see you just as easily. They weren't even visible with the naked eye, but when I watched the antelope and deer through the binoculars, they were staring right at me!

I wasted a couple hours trying to figure out an approach to the pronghorn, but they just had too much flat open ground in ervery direction. I even tried to appeal to there since of curiosity by waving a white t shirt, but to no effect.

Lesson three: walk in. I ended up Taking my first antelope doe later that afternoon. I left the jeep just inside the perimeter of the BLM ebtrance and hiked in so I would spook anything with the dust cloud and noise driving in. This paid off, as I stalked to within 75 yards of a mule deer doe and her two fawns in a creek bed just over the first ridge. I wasn't deer hunting, but it was fun anyway.

A little later I spotted a group of pronghorn feeding on the opposite side of a limestone spine that jutted up from the valley about a mile away. I just glimpsed them as they crossed a dry creek bed that cut the spine in two. Since it was a completely blind stalk, I was able to close the distance quickly, then crawl the last several hundred yards to a place where I could set up for a shot. I could see the group but knew it was below me, and would heve to cross one of two points to exit the draw where they were feeding. I would either get a 40 yd shot, or one of 250. Since I had time to build a little nest behind my back pack, and get comfortable, It didn't really matter. At that point, I was guaranteed of my first antelope on my first day ever hunting them. Everything from that point went as expected. However, they did take long enough to exit that little ravine, that at one point I started to second guess whether or not I had actually seen anything, or if I had just stalked and crawled into shooting range of a figment of my imagination. But, I inevitably got my goat.

The only real drama was getting it out. By this time it was late afternnon, I was at the back of the property about 1.5 miles from the jeep, and weather was building. I knew I could get the jeep in and out if it stayed dry, but if the rains came after I got in, I would be stranded until it dryed out. I also didn't have enough time to quarter the animal and pack it out before dark. So if I didn't go get the jeep, it would mean a night in a bivy sack in bad weather. I only had some emergency over night gear, the rest was in the jeep.

I took a calculated gamble, and left my gear with the downed doe, and hoofed it back to the vehicle. From there, I drove it like the rented car that it was (sorry Hertz) and drove Dukes of Hazard style back to the kill site. I definitely could not have done this had I been "car hunting"! But what the hell, I wasn't in my car.

I through my "trophy" into a contractor style trash bag and headed out. It was just after dark when I got back to the main road. It turned out to be the right choice. That night it the temp dropped down in to the low 20's, and a very cold rain eventually turned to snow.

It was still snowing the next morning, so I slept late. Then I drove in to town to get a hot meal. I filled my second doe tag around noon. That hunt definitely could have been done from a Honda Civic. The only thing of interest to report there, involved me climbing an old wind mill to spot a lone goat that I thought had magically vanished. But, I won't waste anymore valuable memory on the websites servers. I have taken up enough already

Binatilstate,
I hope the cost isn't what's holding you back. I did it on a shoe string. All left over tags and public land. Plenty of left over mule deer and pronghorn doe tags for under $40 each. Even a good number of pronghorn buck tags for about $250 or a little less. I was just in it for the experience, and horns would have been much harder to fly back with or ship. I flew Southwest for under $100 each way. Coming back I had one box of boned out meat that cost me $50 because it was my 3rd checked bag, after my pack and gun.

Wyohome,
I am definitely coming back! As often as I can. The only reason I'm not coming back this year is because I am doing a OTC pack in elk hunt on public land in CO. Last year I solo'd and had a blast. This year, my bro in law wanted to come, and he wanted to do CO to save driving.

I'm thinking next year I will try an elk bow hunt in WY so I can be there when they are bugling.

Since I filled my tags so quickly and I had a week to kill, I drove up to Yellowstone to camp. You have one beautiful state, and probably the most welcoming people I have ever met.

Funny enough, the only Mulie buck I saw the whole week in WY came within inches of totaling my rental car the last night. He was a monster!

Here are a few pics from the trip. The shots of the tent site are a deer bed that I found my first night to get out of the wind. The river / mountain shots are what I woke up to my third morning. The night before I had crossed the whole state on my way to Yellowstone. It was already dark before I made it to the pass in Shoshone NF, so I had know idea what the scenery around me looked like. I was exhausted and just pulled off at a NF campsite to sleep. I woke up after a very cold night to this postcard view. I slept right in the jeep so had no idea I was even 30 ft from a river. There were even bear tracks along the bank.

I completely butchered both animals right there in the river that morning, then let the meat soak in the water to get a head start on freezing while I seared some backstrap with grits for breakfast. It was cold enough that I had to keep stopping to break the ice of my knife blade. World class day!!