My 1st Antelope!!

[hilljack22]

I just got back from 2 weeks in the Casper, WY area from an antelope hunt. On the way out, my buddy and I probably counted 400 head of antelope, so I figured it would be easy to fill our tags.

WRONG!!

I bet I walked 50 miles in a week and a half up and down mountains and ravines. Wind blowing anywhere from 20-40 mph around the peaks at 30 degree temps in the morning.

These little boogers are all eyes...You would have to spot them from long distances and attempt to sneak up to them (crawling and using every little sagebrush for cover) and hope that their sentinels set up on each side of the herd wouldn't spot you.

Some observations:

1) Take a backup gun! My scope on my Savage 30-06 got bumped when I was doing a crawl/stalk and I was able to switch to my Remington 243 very quickly without resighting the Savage.

2) Get good Optics ! I had a pair of Baush & Lomb 10 x40s which were OK, but my buddys Ziess binoculars were like having the sun directly overhead at all times (including early morning).

3) Be in shape! I bet we walked 50 miles on inclines at 6000 feet (roughly) for 12 hours a day. The last few days I was just driven by willpower alone.

4) Bring a game carrier or be ready to drag your animal up and down mountains to get to the truck...

5) Bring a cleaning kit/rod into the field. I was sitting in a gully glassing a basin area when a wind gust knocked my Savage over and got some mud in the barrel. I was able to use a long thistle weed to pull the mud out from the muzzle.

But the final result... It's a blast!!

 

[hilljack22]

BTW...

 

[sumpnz]

Beautiful! Unfortunatly, here in AZ it will likely take me 10 years to score a pronghorn tag.

 

[theCZ]

Nice antelope! I'm totally jealous, I can't wait until I'm out of college so I can do some hunting.

 

[Coltdriver]

Congratulations!

I have been deer hunting in Eastern Colorado for the past two days and saw lots of antelope.

They will see you first if you are not real sneaky!

What .243 load did you use?? That is what I took deer hunting too.

 

[Kingcreek]

Congratulations! Very nice 'lope and a good hunting story too. I am quite familiar with the Casper area. What area did you hunt? Guided or on your own?
I've hunted the Natrona area, North side of the river and west of Casper. I know Rim Rock Ranch pretty well. Shot a few 'lopes there with a little Winchester .243 and then with a Ruger .270 after my wife claimed the Winchester as her own. Its been a couple years since I hunted there. We always top off the cooler with Bison meat and dry ice from one of the lockers in Casper.
You done good if you were hunting late. Looks like cooler weather. If you hunt early the weather can be warm (hot even) and I highly recomend clean water to sluice out a field dressed goat and a cooler with some ice you can chuck into the cavity. I also carry an old but clean canvas tarp to keep the sun off the meat. Pronghorn is some of the best tasting venison but it doesn't tolerate much heat. be quick to clean and cool.
Some folks just drive around until they see a suitable pronghorn then jump out and drop it (or maybe just shoot from the truck) but I prefer to hike a little. pretty country and you miss alot if you never leave the ranch roads.

 

[Nathanael_Greene]

Wow, I'm envious.

Not just about the pronghorn, either. I wish I was in good enough shape to climb around in mountains for 10 days.

 

[Ktulu]

Congratulations! Great story and thanks for the tips.

 

[NRA4LIFE]

Nice Job. I am well aware of your plight. I hunt SE Montana and the wind and weather can be terrible. 80 degrees one day, 10 degrees and miserable the next. If I can make a suggestion, learn how to field butcher, it's really not that hard. I've killed many pronghorn (and muleys) when I was miles from the roads. Even a large pronghorn buck can be reduced to 35-40 pounds of boned out meat, easily carried in a stout backpack by one person. The bonus too is that when you get back to camp, most of the work is done.

 

[hilljack22]

Thanks for all the kind words, guys!

Sumpnz, we applied for the tags in February, and got them in July. Antelope was $285 (I think). We also knew in advance what areas to try to get based on other people's recommendations.

Coltdriver, the 243 load I used was a Federal 100 grain Sierra BTSP (from the Vital-Shok line). It was the most accurate in my Remington.

Kingcreek, the area we had was 32 - which was Natrona County and North Carbon County. Carbon County was where I got it. The weather was in the 30s but the wind was the worst part.

Nathanael, I smoke about a pack a day. I thought it would kill me and I would be stopping every five minutes to wheeze. The thing was, I was so geeked up about the hunt (and the 19 hour drive out-yikes!), that was what mostly kept me going. I did wake up every morning with my legs stiff and sore. I can highly recommend Cabelas Silent Stalker boots with their Ultimate Wool socks. Light, comfortable, and my feet did not sweat.

NRA4LIFE, that is a very good idea about the field butchering. My buddy and I are now hooked on these types of hunting trips and will probably try to do it again in a few years (after I save up more money).

 

[NRA4LIFE]

One nice thing about hunting the prairie country is that you can do pronghorn mule deer combo hunts real easy. The seasons overlap in MT (and I believe WY too) and if you can draw a deer A tag, you can then apply, and usually get an antelope permit. I hunt in the 700 units. Tack on a doe permit or 2 and you can really have a ball.

 

[El Tejon]

Very nice animal, hill.

Take some condoms (for your rifle, not that) next time.

 

[Newt]

Just curious... Did you hunt Gov't land? Private? Just for reference in case I go up that way to do some hunting in the future.

 

[Kingcreek]

IIRC, There is not much public land available in that area.
A little known secret, for a hunter that tags out and still has some time, is the fact that there is some great blue-ribbon trout water around Casper.
I last hunted there 2 seasons ago and an either-sex antelope tag was $195 I think. They go up that much?
Its amazing how you can see hundreds of those pronghorns everywhere, but they can still be pretty challenging to hunt.
First time my wife hunted out there with me she flubbed the 3 position safety on the model 70. squeezed and squeezed the trigger some more but no bang on a nice buck less than 100 yards out at almost sundown. She was so mad at herself and crying when he walked over a canyon rim and dropped out of sight. I convinced her to run to the rim and try to get a shot. She bucked herself up and RAN 100 yards thru the cactus and sage, spotted him coming up the far side at almost 200 yards. calmly dropped to one knee, flipped the safety FORWARD and drilled him like she did it everyday. about 4 minutes of legal shooting time left. I was so happy for her and happy to haul that guy out of there. I had to remind her how much easier it would have been if she had shot him where she first saw him.
Hardest thing for us flatlanders is judging distance out there on the prairie.

 

[hilljack22]

We were on public land but the peak around which we hunted was easiest to access via a private cattle ranch. We stopped and talked to the lady of the house and paid her $25 each to have unlimited access through her land (this was her price; she has done this for others before). This allowed us to hunt all the public land and all her private land, too.

She was so nice to us that she offered us the use of her ATV if we couldn't drag our animals out ourselves.

We had topo maps of Casper and the Shirley Basin areas which show the private/public/blm lands by color code. Using our GPS, we pretty much knew what was legal land to hunt on. If we did not, we didn't hunt it.

Kingcreek, we thought about the trout fishing, but had left the fly rods at home...we also had mule deer tags but mostly focused on the antelope.

We only saw Doe muleys and the tags specificly state antlered deer.

We were also so exhausted after we finally got our antelopes that we slept most of the last day we were there...

 

[Ankeny]

As a life long Wyomingite, I have been hunting pronghorn for 35 years and it is still as much fun now as the first time. Glad you had a great time.

 

[Rembrandt]

Congratulations on your first Antelope...they do become addicting. Best time to get them is early morning and late evening when they start to bunch up. During the day time they are spooky.

Here's a few the kids and I have taken over the years near the New Castle, Wyoming area.