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