WY Antelope & the best week of Whitetail hunting of my life!

[Kimber7man]

One mystery state in there where orange isnt required but its in the midwest and mule deer exist

Lots of people I know take their hunter orange off for pictures with the dead animal.

 

[SC Living Outdoors]

One mystery state in there where orange isnt required but its in the midwest and mule deer exist

This is a public forum. There are some things I don’t want to share. I can assure you I was 100% by the book.

 

[seeth07]

The one photo shows him rattling without orange and a deer coming in.

 

[CPAjeff]

I can vouch for @SC Living Outdoors character - he’s an absolute great guy and 100% by the book. Low fence, Midwest rifle deer hunts during the rut, without orange do exist. He and I chatted extensively about this hunt, and I’m envious of his success!!

 

[WNC2500]

Congrats @SC Living Outdoors
Great bucks

 

[LopeHunter]

Part 1.4 - Wyoming
Day 5

Day 5 began the same as the others. Kaitlin and I loaded up in the truck and headed to our unit. Like I said in the previous post I was very confident I could get an antelope, but I wasn’t super confident I’d be able to find a good buck because of how quickly they were dropping their sheaths. We didn’t find our first group until about 10 to 9am and wouldn’t you know it not a buck in the group. We headed back in the opposite direction and took a side road where we had seen multiple groups of antelope over the last 4 days. About halfway down this road I saw a group out in front of us and I asked Kaitlin if that was the same group we had just seen and they had just circled around us somehow. We looked right and left and realized it was a new group, so we stopped and began to survey them with the binos and realized not only was it a new group. It was a new group with a good buck in it. We drove up a little more and I tried to put a quick stalk on them because they were looking at my vehicle, but they were skittish and I wasn’t able to get inside about 550 yards before they started moving. I headed back to my he truck but by this time I had some decent knowledge about the area we were hunting. I hopped back in the truck turned around and took off planning to make a big loop around them out of sight hoping they would walk right by me. I drove about 2 1/2 miles East then cut up another road where I knew there was an old farm structure where I could hide the truck, then I’d sneak out into the sage brush to get set up. Everything was going according to plan. I got set up staying low and every once in a while I would peek with my binoculars in the direction that I knew the antelope should be coming from. After about 20 minutes, I saw the first antelope still long ways off coming in my direction. Success! This was going to Iwork like a charm. As the antelope came closer, they began to slow down, then they stopped all together and began to graze, then they began to bed. The antelope were still a mile away. I did not know how many more opportunities I would get to kill a good buck so I decided there was no time like the present. I didn’t need to screw this one up. I began to crouch and move forward and crawl and move forward, depending on the terrain. When I first started, the Sagebrush was a little taller. Unfortunately, the closer I got to the antelope the more sparse the cover got and significantly shorter. I would look up pick the biggest sage bush I could find and crawl to it and continue to do that over and over again. The amount of cactuse needles that I got in my forearms was just ridiculous. When I left the truck, I thought it would be about 30 minutes and I would kill a goat, but after three hours of crawling for 3/4 of a mile the sagebrush was only about 12 inches tall, but I spotted the buck bedded and I was in range. I set up behind the biggest bush I could find and got my gun on the tripod with my trekking poles under the back and waited. Finally, he stood. I shot as he was quartering towards me and he disappeared. All the goats took off to the right, but he wasn’t with them. I texted Kaitlin “I got him”. She was happy for me. She knew I’d been holding out for a good antelope.

Finally, on day five. I had my antelope. Kaitlin brought the truck around and we headed over to break him down and get the meat in the cooler. He ended up being a pretty good goat. We took some pictures and got the meat to the truck.

I’ll allow myself to have a cheat meal after a successful hunt so that night the three of us went out for pizza. It had been a fun trip in Wyoming, but the next morning Kaitlin had to get on a plane to head home and I had to start driving towards my next hunt. All in all it was a good time. 3 for 3 in 5 days. Little did I know that I was about to follow that up with best week of whitetail hunting of my life.
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Great recap.

 

[wihunter12]

Congrats on your success @SC Living Outdoors !