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Wyoming Muzzleloader Antelope

jvalenta16

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Mar 28, 2018
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A few weeks ago my wife and I embarked on our first ever Wyoming antelope trip. She is not a hunter but wanted to tag along just to see what Wyoming had to offer. Prior to the hunt I had decided I wanted to go on a muzzleloader hunt vs. the traditional rifle hunt just to test if I could get close enough stalking in the open country that we expected in our unit. We left our home in Wisconsin the Friday before the season opened and drove 19 straight hours to our unit arriving with less than an hour before the sunrise. We changed into camo once we hit the first dirt road and started glassing. We had marked the route we wanted to travel that day on our ONX map and found bucks right off the start. We wanted to cover as much of the unit opening day, so we would quickly glass and move on to the next public piece. We did this until about noon and saw more antelope than expected. We finally found a buck we would shoot opening day but unfortunately he bedded up about 200 yds from the nearest public land. We watched and waited on him for the majority of the afternoon. He would get up and move 100 yds and bed again, never leaving private land. Day number 2 started with us trying to relocate that same buck from day 1. Right at first light we spotted him and he had moved to public, but before we were able to close the deal he had moved back to private and we continued on our hunt. We glassed over 100 bucks on day 2, but they were already getting more alert to the hunters and we never found one we wanted to shoot that early in the hunt. We still had 6 days of hunting left. Day 3 found us on the opposite end of the unit that we found our #1 buck with hopes that we could relocate a few of the bucks we had seen early on Day 1. We later realized some of the bucks we passed on Day 1 were bucks we probably should have shot. About 10 o'clock in the morning we located a nice buck bedded with 2 other small bucks, we stalked to within 190 yds and kept going back and forth on whether or not to shoot, my wife thought he was big enough and I thought we could find something bigger. We ended up passing and driving up to the next spot we wanted to glass from. Immediately after pulling up to the basin to glass, my wife spotted a buck moving down the line fence towards us. We both knew right away this buck was worthy of a stalk. I bailed out of the truck as he went behind a small rise before leading out to the big basin below. A short stalk later I was able to get a shot and as the smoke cleared I could tell he was hit hard. We walked up on the buck and he was exactly what we were hoping for, he was real heavy and from what we could tell he was the second biggest buck we saw on the trip. We were able to meet a really great local hunter that helped us explore our unit and give us great tips on how to get close to antelope in the wide open. We enjoyed a few more days in Wyoming exploring some areas that I had elk hunted in the past before heading back to Wisconsin.
 

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Congrats on a great hunt and great buck, especially for that area. Make sure to post more of the prairie dog pics, I know there are plenty!
 
Congrats on your harvest. This year I had put in for a muzzleloader hunt as my first choice but was not drawn. Maybe I can get a tag next year.
 
Congrats on your harvest. This year I had put in for a muzzleloader hunt as my first choice but was not drawn. Maybe I can get a tag next year.

Can you use a muzzleloader during the regular season?
 
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Do you mind sharing the details of your muzzleloader, scope and load? I'm thinking of replacing my Winchester Apex next year and gathering ideas.
 
For the hunt I bought a CVA Accura with the Bergara barrel. I have a Nikon 3×9 scope and shoot 110 grains of pyrodex and 245 grain Aerolite bullets. I felt good out to 250 yds, but would have shot to 300 if needed. The rifle was still plenty accurate at that range.
 
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