Wyoming DIY Antelope Hunting: Part 1 – Drawing a License

While I love elk hunting in the mountainous backcountry of the west, I can see the light at the end of that tunnel. Fortunately, its still a small light, but DIY elk hunting on public land is tough physically and there will be a day when my body just doesn’t want to do it anymore. Thankfully, there are pronghorn antelope. Hunting antelope on the prairie on public land is probably my favorite October past time. The autumn weather is typically nice and unlike elk or deer hunting,  you aren’t required to be out in the field at the crack of dawn. Antelope are fairly territoria. They will move around a bit within their home area, but they are always out there somewhere.  So you can chase them all day long. Typical areas where you find antelope are wide open with sparse cover. While you will normally see lots of game,  it’s a hunt that will test your stalking and shooting skills. Plan on using undulations in the terrain and a lot of crawling to get in position for a shot.  On public land where the speed goats get pressured, it will improve your odds to be a competent shot out to 300 or even 400 yards. Compared to most big game adventures, pronghorn hunts are low budget and hunters have high success rates in almost all areas where they are pursued. For teaching a young hunter the basics of big game hunting there is no better opportunity.

Conner’s 2011 Antelope Buck from Eastern Montana

While several states offer antelope hunting, Wyoming stands out as the place to go if you are looking for a low cost, DIY hunt with high draw odds and trophy opportunities. Wyoming has an estimated pronghorn population of 530,000, more than any other state. Each year, Wyoming sells approximately 75,000 antelope licenses of which over half go to to nonresidents. The good news is amost all antelope units in the state enjoy a non-resident success rate of over 95%!

So let’s get started planning an antelope hunt in Wyoming. First we’ll look at Wyoming’s preference point system and license allocation method through the draw.

Licenses, Quotas, Application Dates and Non-Resident Allocation.

Wyoming divides the state into 115 antelope units or “hunt areas”, each with an annual tag quota. The state allocates approximately 15% of its total license quota for a unit to non-residents. Of these licenses, 60% are allocated to the non-resident regular license draw and 40% are allocated to those non-residents who select the “Special License” option. “Special” licenses are simply a more expensive non-resident license option. For antelope, they will add $240 more to the regular antelope tag fee of $286. Due to the higher cost, fewer hunters elect to purchase these licenses resulting in significantly higher draw odds.  Other than the higher cost, there are no differences in these two licenses once drawn. The application period for an antelope license is January 1st and March 15th.

• Each hunt area’s quota of licenses, draw odds, and hunter success rates are posted on Wyoming’s Game and Fish website:  http://gf.state.wy.us/web2011/hunting-1000045.aspx

Preference Points and How They Work

For the draw, Wyoming uses a preference point system. Preference points can be accumulated through the annual draw process or Wyoming allows hunters to purchase a preference point for antelope between July 1st and September 30th. This means you can accumulate points without applying for a license in any calendar year. Or, if you have been applying and have a year where you can’t actually hunt, this system allows you to stay in the game and continue to add to your points total. Another great part of their system: If you are not drawn for your first choice hunt unit, but are drawn for your second or third choice unit, Wyoming does not take away your accumulated points. Why is this so important? With careful planning, you can hunt antelope in Wyoming every year on second choice units or leftover tags while accumulating the points you will need to eventually draw a trophy unit in the state. An antelope preference point cost $30 in 2012.

For each draw in a unit, WY allocates 75% of the available tags in that unit to max point holders and 25% to a random draw for all point holders who chose the unit as first choice. For this example let’s say hunt area 20 has a quota of 100 non-resident tags, so 75 will go to max point holders. In addition there are 25 people applying with five points, 30 with four points, 50 with three points and 100 people with two or less points. The 25 people with five points will all get drawn, leaving 50 available tags. Next, the 30 people with four points will all get drawn, leaving 20 tags remaining. Then 20 of the folks with three points will be randomly drawn from the 50 that applied. At this time, all 75 max points tags have been allocated. That leaves 30 people with 3 pts plus the 100 people with 2 pts or less.. or 130 total that have not been drawn. Their names all go into a hat for 25 random draw tags for hunt area. I hope this makes sense so far.. !  Here are the statistics on Non-Resident point holders coming into the 2013 draw:

Second and Third Choice and Leftover Tags

Finally, lets review how the second and third choice selection for a unit works and the possibility of “leftover” tags. In the example of unit 20 above, there were more first choice applicants than the unit’s non-resident tag quota. The unsuccessful applicants would retain their preference points and would become eligible for their second choice unit draw. However, no tags in Game Unit 20 would be available for 2nd or 3rd choice applicants.

However, in many of Wyoming’s units, there are more tags allocated than there are first choice applicants. In these units, the remaining tags are then allocated to hunters who have selected that unit as a 2nd or 3rd choice on their license application. The draw odds in these units are random and are not based on points. In many units, 100% of the second and even third choice applicants are drawn, leaving remaining, unsold tags.

Wyoming puts these unsold, or “leftover” tags for sale in July on a first come, first served basis. In more popular units these tags sell out in a matter of days, if not hours. In those units which have large quotas but little public land, there will be unsold tags still available during hunting season.

This wraps up Part 1 in this series. Although some of the details may be a little confusing, Wyoming actually has a great system for building points and tag allocations for non-resident hunters. Now that you understand how the system works, move on to Part 2 where I will take you through actual hunt planning and discuss the landscape of Wyoming’s antelope units.