Trying to set up a hunt in Wyoming for some lope in the fall of '05. Would like to do it it on the cheap if possible (i.e self guided). Do any of you know of landowners who lease their land to hunters in this area? Any tips on hunting antelope would be appreciated.

If you contact the Wyoming Game and Fish they can provide you with a list of landowners for any given area. You can then contact ranch owners in the area you are interested in.
The area near Douglas is an easy draw and has plenty of antelope.

I have no real tips on hunting antelope, I guess. Just be prepared for the most wide open country you have ever seen. There is little to hide behind out there. You can make stalks by using the terrain, though. I guess the one thing I would recommend is the purchase of a good laser range finder. It is difficult to judge distance in that wide open terrain. Having said that, I have shot about as many at 100 yards as I have furthur out and have never shot one more than about 250. (Saw my dad make a hell of a shot on one in New Mexico this fall, though. Measured distance of 400 yards!)

R F

I just did my first self hunt there for mulie and lope. My advice is get there before opening day or at the very end of the season.

Better be good at shooting up to 400 yards IMO. Conact WY DNR for list of ranchers. Douglas is a good area. Not sure what unit it is though. 26 I think??

Regardless, there are plenty of tags there. Apply for 70, 72, 73 (going by memory) if you want a bigger goat.

My problem wasn't seeing antelope, it was having other hunters ride up in their trucks after I had just stalked for 2-5 miles, jump out and blaze away at the herd I'd stalked. Not good hunter ettiquette (sp?). It really sucks when you get about 4-5 seconds aways from pulling the trigger and the whole herd takes off for no reason...until you look behind you and see a bunch of %&*@@# driving right up to where you are just to shoot first.

My advice would also be to find a guy with a SMALL piece of land...go hunt that. That is what I wound up doing. I must have counted 10 different bucks that I would have shot. Not monsters, but shooters for me.

Here's mine...it's my first antelope. Not big but big enough for me:


Since I was tagged out I just took a bunch of pictures of all these OTHER undisturbed antelope. I can't post those pictures because they're still on my camera.

Do the antelope and mule deer season overlap? Would love to try for both if possible.

They do in some units.

I had a unit 32 antelope and a Region D deer tag.

Antelope was from Sept. 25 to Oct. 25. Deer was Oct. 15-31.

I went and hunted from the 13th through the 18th. The antelope are scared silly by this time.

I will be putting in for a limited entry deer tag this year and 47 for antelope, if that unit number is right.

That's a nice lope Doc! I've hunted in Montana 9 times, there's nothing wrong with that one.
I know how you feel, you put all that time and energy into a great stalk and some "ya-hoo's" screw it all up for you!
I went with a guide on private land, had a few times where pickup trucks would stop on the dirt road, get out and watch the lopes I was trying to hunt, don't have to tell you what the lopes did!
Again good pronghorn!

Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. Wy manages their game unit by unit. That applies to number of tags, length of season, time of season and so forth. You need to have Wy send you their application booklet as well as the list of cooperating land owners. It gives you percentages of open land, hunter success and such.
I found that good goat country often isn't the best for mulies and vice versa. On my first hunt, I was more interested in antelope than anything else. Being an easterner, to me they were an "exotic". Altho I've never hunted it, west of Cheyenne in the painted desert is supposed to be good with lots of goats and public land. But it is not an easy draw.
You will need a GOOD set of topo maps, a compass and a working odometer on you truck as the division between private and public land is often unmarked. And some of the locals tend to swing a pretty wide loop so its good to know where you are.
Get a bi-pod. One tall enough to let you shoot from a sitting position. That sage grows taller than you think in places. Its certainly no gonna hurt to practice out to 400 yards but there is little need for the poke and hope shots some advocate. My longest shot was less than 400 at 380+ long steps. I had ranged it at 400 using the plex in my rifle and was prone with plenty of time to settle myself. As posted, just about all my goats came at less than 250.
The local townsfolk can be pretty agreeable. Especially if you're spending some cash but don't expect to walk into a gas station, buy a $.05 candy bar and have the guy spill his guts to you. He's only been asked "where can I go kill a record antelope" 87 or 90 times that day. In mamy places, you will see signs that say "Frankly we don't care how you did it back home". Those signs are there for a purpose and they mean what they say. The owner of the place (if you can imagine a "place" of 175,000 acres)where I hunted will not let anyone from a certain large east coast state hunt his place.
Antelope don't take a lot of killing. Neither do mulies for that matter with a well placed shot. IMO, a .280 (and yes, a .270) makes a great combo rifle for an antelope/mule deer hunt. The last couple of times I went, my cartridge of choice was a 7-08 with a 140 partition bullet. My son used a 7-08 with a 145gr Grand Slam bullet. While it is not good business to pass up any opportunity to buy another rifle, if you have something from a 257 to a 30-06, you have what will work.

Comet, I just happen to know exactly what and where you can find a large number of BIG antelope that I discovered hunting for elk this year in Wyoming. We saw no hunters in the area and it was crawling with antelope of mountable proportions and I have hunted them for years. My hunting partner can't make it next year so email me at rickt300@yahoo.com and we'll do some planning.

WAAAAAAAA ha ha haAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA..WWWaaaaaaa waaa.

You didn't invite me!!!


I wanna go I wanna go I wanna go. Waaaa ha ahahahahhahhaaaaaaa.

Sup wit dat??

Ok, so, do you know what the odds of drawing a tag there are?

Usually when I apply to Wyoming, I try to do a combo hunt, antelope/deer or elk.

I'll look at a map and see what units are around those goat units.

Thanks for the secret.

Looks like the odds on drawing a tag for 61 are about 9% and for 62, 20%, at least if paying the non special rate and those were the odds for 2004.

However, looks like a 100% on unit 45. Why is this? Land not very accessible?

Unit 32 was about 50%.

I drove through Laramie from Casper when I was heading down to Cortez, CO to meet my brother. The wind 'bout knocked me over when pumping gas there in Laramie.

2004 Wyoming Draw demands NONres speedgoat

Doc, if it ONLY "bout knocked you over", that's not considered a REAL wind in Wyoming.

Oh, OK, well, it was a struggle to remain standing while pumping the gas. Let alone, the headwind caused my truck to get 12 miles per gallon compared to the usual 19. That SUCKED.

You might try the Durham Buffalo Ranch just out of Wright. I think the Gillette area really has better goats than the Douglas area further south. I took one off the Durham ranch in 1990 with a handgun and it was a really good hunt.

I've freelanced a couple of areas in Wyoming for years, rarely get skunked and have not met any especially cranky locals either. Permission is not too hard to get; I wouldn't touch a piece of private land without permission. Most will tell you they're willing to share but really dislike it when people won't do them the courtesy of asking first.

Do you have a contact at this ranch? Thanks for your help.