Every year about June, I got the itch to hunt, knowing that in most states their permit draw deadline, would be up soon. Wyoming is without a doubt the best antelope hunting in the US. If you want, you can buy, or apply for multiple permits. Depends what you want, meat, or trophy. If you want meat, you can get between 2 and 5 permits for doe antelope. If you want a nice buck, you need to do some research, and find where the trophies are coming from. ( I would suggest the Red Desert area North West of Wamsutter Wyoming. North of I-80, or South West of Wamsutter South of I 80. Some huge bucks in both areas. Wamsutter is on the South side of I-80 between Sinclair and Green River. If my memory is correct. You need to do some homework to decide what you want to do.
Call the Wyoming Dept. of Game and Fish in Cheyenne. They are truly great about helping you. Ask for permit applications, which include maps. Ask if there are leftover permits for buck or doe. Ask for those applications. Once you get them, decide where you want to hunt. Much of the land is inaccessible! But there is a sizeable portion that is State or Federal land that you can hunt. Everything is by unit, and there is a different unit designation for each big game species. The same unit for deer, will have a different unit number for Antelope. Some areas you MUST have a guide.
I decided to hunt doe antelope one year near Gillette, in the North East corner of Wyoming not really the corner but near. The group comprised of my buddy Gordon, my old buddy Tom (now deceased), and me. We hunted unit 22, just a few miles South West of Gillette. We could only find a few square miles of land there that we could hunt. Everything was tied up by guides and landowners. Really hard to get any permission to hunt. We had to settle on 1 mile square. Daylight came, and by golly, there were antelope every place. There were also alot of hunters around us. It was what they call School land. State land that you can hunt. We each had 2-3 permits, and the Antelope for 3-4 miles would come through that 1 mile of land all day long. We filled all but, I think one tag. All Doe's. We went to Gillette, and bought bags of ice to stuff inside the chest cavity of all of the game, and since it was evening, we decided to go ahead and drive home, saving us all the motel expenses, and allowing us to get our game in a cooler ASAP. The evenings this time of year in Wyoming get real nice and cool. It was about a 5 hour drive back to Longmont Colorado where we all lived.
The reason we go to Wyoming, is that it has become so political to hunt antelope in Colorado for residents. It may take you years to get a tag for property that you alone can hunt. If you have a hunting show, it seems that you almost certainly will get your permit. Colorado is nowhere near as good to their own hunters as Wyoming. Maybe, unless you are from out of state. Hahaha.
Hope you enjoyed this story. If you need any advice on how to get a good unit, or how to judge where to hunt, email me at splashingtime@gmail.com
Do visit my site to read more stories and even post some of your hunting memories.
Thanks,
Ray
Ray has hunted every season, for nearly everything He could. He was born and raised in Indiana, and moved to Colorado in 1976. He hunted all over Colorado and Wyoming, and a few places in Canada until He became disabled in 2003. Now he lives on an Island off the North West coast of Malaysia with his wife, Delia. Ray shares his stories and tips and hunting on his website and invites you to share your hunting memories too.
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