1st time antelope hunt help

[josephfox]

trying to plan a diy 1st time to wyoming antelope hunt and was curious if anyone can help me out with some recommendations. i would like to hunt the northeastern area of the state due to time and travel distance. I'm having trouble trying to figure out what unit to apply for that has decent public access yet be fairly near a hotel for lodging. how about the area near devils tower or should we go further west? any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[JohnCushman]

I'm going in to unit 7 in the north east part of the state. The draw odds are awesome, plus there's been a ton of leftover tags for the area in the past couple years. It's mostly National Grassland, checkerboarded with private land. There are a couple towns in the area, Newcastle being the largest. The guy I talked to at WY game and fish was friendly and knowledgable. 307-777-4600. I ordered the BLM map for Thunderbasin Graslands and ordered the map with Land Status, which will show the private lands in there. Those maps you can get at 307-775-6256.

 

[billr]

Wyoming Antelope

Have you hunted this area before?

 

[JohnCushman]

I've never hunted it personally, but I have a bunch of friends on archerytalk.com that hunt there every year with 100% success with bows (most filling buck and doe tags), so I've been looking a little further into the area for my own research

 

[Mingo]

Call Game and Fish and get a landowner contact list for the area you are considering. You will have to make a lot of phone calls, but you can get on private land for a relatively small trespass fee. Some town and chamber of commerce websites also have a list for their area (Newcastle has one).

I went for the first time last year near Douglas. Got on a ranch for $100, saw plenty of goats and took a decent 14" buck. It was a great time.

 

[mixedbag]

Don't know anything about the Northeast part of Wy. for antelope.You will want to check out fish and game website for HMAs and walk in areas.Hunting antelope is alot of fun.I have a hard time believing the archery guys all come back with 3 antelope.Though they are relatively easy to get with a gun that can reach out.Bowhunting is totally different, and extremely challenging.If you are hunting in a blind thats been there for awhile it may be easier; as seen on TV.If your just driving out to public ground to bowhunt you will soon find out its not alot like those TV shows.I'll be back out again this year for archery antelope, but its far from a slam dunk
The guy that went along with me last year gave up in 3 days, and decided to just stay in the motel.He felt he had no chance with his bow.He's not a great hunter and really ruined my trip listening to him whine.I missed a buck at 30 yards; thought he was at 45 and shot over him.I also had a few chances at does that I past on.I prefer to hunt them with my bow because gun hunting them is fairly easy.New partner for this year so hopefully it goes better.Its a 24 hour drive for me, and thats a long way to listen to whining

 

[174in]

I belive that like 10 archers from archery talk whent out and came back with 22 or 24 antelope.They did have some help from a couple locals on where to set up.That was a pretty succesfull trip I would say.

 

[josephfox]

which city would you choose for a basecamp? buffalo,newcastle or gillette. we may try to draw for a muley tag as well and make it a combo hunt

 

[JohnCushman]

I'd make basecamp right on the BLM land and run into town as needed