Wyoming Antelope as first Western Hunt.

[Labdad]

Im heading out there this year with my 12 year old daughter , am paying the trespass fee. We have 0 points so Its a pretty reasonable fee while we build points and to give her a shot at being successful. I have a couple units that i will snoop around while I’m out there in hopes of DIY next year with her

Checking units b4 you blow points is a great idea. Some years back I had 7 points and went to a "blue chip" unit to check on it for the next year after hunting a leftover. When they were truly leftovers.

I am soooooooo glad I didn't waste my points as I saw better and more antelope on units with less points.

Don't believe everything you read on the net.

 

[magedon44]

following

 

[toasty]

I have hunted a couple low public access areas of WY OTC tags and there is land you can hunt. Just hard to watch all of the big bucks on private land as you search for something on public. Onx is must in these areas.

 

[rfertig]

You could look into the NR Special draw too--it opens up a few more areas with 100% draw odds. Pretty much as long as you're not in the mountains, there will be antelope (even there you'll find them in foothills sometimes).

 

[bmf0713]

What I did was found easier draw areas with decent harvest odds to narrow it down. Toprut works good for that. I also purchased a preference point when I purchased the license just to be sure I drew. Wasn't really interested in building points at the time just I wanted to hunt. When looking at the Wyoming game and fish maps the roads are misleading. I actually got on the counties websites and looked at their road service maps and even called a couple road commissioners to see what roads were public because some of them end where private starts. One commissioner even told me that the one road was public but the rancher was such a pain in the ass they just put a gate up and quit maintaining the road at a certain point. After I drew the tag I got a map from my topo and highlighted the roads and areas I could hunt and used that along with onX maps. It also doesn’t hurt to go to a little outdoor shop and ask questions. We stopped at a place and got a guys phone number and the guy showed us a spot that didn’t look like it was public access and it worked out good for us!

 

[toasty]

10 years ago, it was easy to get access to private land and ranches in the leftover units. If you called them or stopped by, they would almost always let you hunt. Now, everybody wants $$ for access. One lady wanted $1K for access to 200 acres in a unit near Casper last year. I politely declined. The problem is that it has pushed more hunters to the public land making it more difficult to find a good buck. It is more of a challenge though and no longer a 1 day hunt.

 

[Carr5vols]

Some units are hard just use onx and walk away from road as far as you can. We killed 3 nice bucks on a limited access unit last year should have been 4. But we had to work for them as it was second week of the hunt. Farthest one was about 2 miles from road. We hunted edges of private and waited for them to cross over. They did every day. Find the property markers and DO Not Cross them.