I have been putting in for Wyoming points for Mule Deer, Elk and Antelope for 10 years for my 2 boys and I. The goal has always been to hopefully draw some good tags when the time is right so me and my boys can have some fun hunts together. After 10 years of applying, we decided the time was right and we had the necessary points to draw a good unit.

In fact, we had enough points we could bring my good friend, Dale Evans, into the mix as well. The benefits of this were two-fold: 1) We had never hunted Antelope before and Dale has multiple times so we knew having him along would shorten our learning curve, and 2) Dale and I have always talked about hunting together and this gave us that chance. We put in for the unit as a Party with our pooled points being enough for a pretty good chance of drawing this unit.

Once we drew the excitement quickly led to planning, how were we going to approach the hunt. We decided pretty early on that we were not going to be out in the field during the opening of the hunt, we wanted to avoid the extra pressure. My next objective was to learn how to properly score and field judge Antelope. My goal was to kill the best buck I could find on the unit, or at least one that really grabbed my attention. Dale helped us understand that the best approach would be to look at as many Antelope as we could before making a final decision on which one we wanted to kill. Dale also recommended looking at a lot of Antelope that have been killed and what they scored to start calibrating my expectations. 

The tools we have nowadays are impressive. For example, On-X made our e-scouting a breeze and it was no different in this scenario. We spent some time identifying potential camp areas and areas that would hold critters. With the e-scouting done we still felt it would be valuable to put feet on the ground and get a feel of the actual lay of the land. It would also be very good to see what kind of animals as we could find and where we were seeing them. My son and I spent a day on the unit looking for animals and marking water, animals of significance and camp spots.

The Hunt

With our plans defined and the hunt dates approaching we spent some time shooting the rifles and making sure we had everything we needed and packed up for camp. We had planned a 5-day window for the hunt, Saturday through Wednesday. Dale was coming back from another hunt and had a tight turnaround for this hunt so my boys and I were going to arrive at shooting light on that Saturday and start looking over animals. Dale was going to arrive later that day and we would meet up then.

We pulled onto the unit right at shooting hours and headed right to an area where we had seen a nice buck during our scouting. On the way in we found a nice buck not too far from the road and spent some time watching him. My oldest son Jaden decided he wanted to make a play on the buck as they worked their way away from the road and over the hill. We jumped out and left Hunter at the truck while Jaden and I used the landscape to hide our advances. We worked into range and Jaden made a great shot putting the buck down in his tracks.

We got the buck skinned and quartered, in game bags and on ice right away, after taking some field photos of course. We were back to the truck and ready to keep looking for animals by 8:30 AM, we had plenty of time left in the day. We sent some cell pics to Dale, 1 down, 2 to go, and got back to searching for the next opportunity.

Dale arrived later that day and we spent mid-day setting up camp and then spent the rest of the day looking at a lot of bucks. We spent the next morning doing the same and ended up finding a very good buck holding tight to a small section of private land. We were waiting him out but he wasn’t leaving the section so we decided to go look over the rest of the unit and see what we could see. We could always come back and check on him later.

We got to the other side of the unit and ended up finding a buck I was happy with. By this time we had looked at well over 100 different bucks and this one was a close second to the other one we had been watching on the small private parcel. We finally got parked and made a game plan and proceeded over a couple of small hills and found a larger group of Antelope with multiple different bucks running around.

“My” buck was no where to be found. A bit disappointed, I laid there with the wind howling in my face and contemplated my next move when suddenly Dale smacked my leg to get my attention. Annoyingly I turned to see what the big deal was and there stood my buck behind a Doe at roughly 80 yards staring at us. I turned around, shouldered the rifle and squeezed off the shot. He went down and we all celebrated. It’s always amazing to me how quickly things can go from zero to a hundred while hunting, I freaking love it!

We got him quartered, in bags and on ice and headed back to the other side of the unit to check on our number one buck for Dale. He was still there so Dale and Jaden decided to wait him out some more and Hunter and I went into town and refreshed the ice chest. When we got back ole numero uno had given Dale and Jaden the slip. We went back to camp with plans to hit the same area the next morning and see if we could turn him up.

The next morning we parked the truck along the edge of a walk in area and started into the last area we seen numero uno. As we made our way into the area Dale spotted a very nice buck and quickly decided he wanted to put his tag on him. He knelt and made a great shot putting him down immediately. It was a gorgeous morning so we got some great field images and took care of the meat right away. We were back to the truck early and made the decision to go back and pack up camp and head home, saving some vacation time for other endeavors. 3 bucks in 3 days, what a fun and exciting hunt!

A quick note on meat care. I had a perception that Antelope wasn’t necessarily all that great to eat, but I’ve heard from multiple people along the way that it’s their favorite game meat. The key is to take proper care of it. What does that mean? I learned with Antelope that it means to be very careful while skinning the animal to not touch the meat with anything that has touched the hide. It means to keep the meat clean of all dirt, hair and debris. It also means to get it cooled down as quickly as possible. We processed our own game to ensure we had the best chance to get good clean meat and it all paid off in spades. For me this hunt would determine if I would continue to hunt antelope as I’m a firm believer in eating what you kill. Let’s just say my youngest still has points and we are looking forward to getting back after it soon.