Wyoming DIY Antelope Hunting: Part 4 Let’s Go Hunting!

So you’ve been drawn for a Wyoming antelope tag ! If you’ve hunted antelope before, this final part of the series may not be for you. For first time hunters, here are the topics we will cover to help prepare you for your hunt:

• What to shoot
• Preparing for the hunt
• How to find and take an antelope buck
• Caring for your antelope

Best rifles and calibers

Archery guys are all over their equipment, so this section really isn’t for them ! I read a lot of hunting forums and the most common point for discussion seems to be proper cartridge and weapon for a hunt. For antelope, this doesn’t need to be a long discussion. A very large buck will weigh around 150 lbs on the hoof, so it doesn’t take a magnum rifle to put one down. In most western states it’s legal to hunt goats with a high power .22, such as .222, .223. and 22-250. I have friends who love to hunt with their 22-250 and 220 Swifts and when well hit at proper ranges with a bullet that leaves the muzzle at close to 4000 FPS, well it just crushes a goat. That said, I am not a fan of using these calibers on antelope. In my opinion they are only adequate. Here’s why. In Montana and Wyoming where I hunt it’s often windy. Second: while some goat terrain lends itself to stalking to within 200 yards, I have hunted pressured public land pronghorns where the flat basins they hang out in prevent you from getting much closer than 300-400 yards. These smaller calibers just don’t do very well in heavy wind, and ballistically they begin to lose steam quickly. The typical 55-60 grain 22-250 load leaves the muzzle at around 3900 FPS with 1600 foot lbs of energy. At 400 yards the energy has fallen almost two thirds to 600 foot lbs. As a comparison, a .270 firing Hornady’s 130 grain SST in their Superformance load has 1654 foot lbs of energy remaining at 400 yards, the same as the 22-250 at the muzzle ! Lower velocity .22 calibers such as .223 and .222 are even worse performers at range. While I agree that these are suitable at 200 yards or less, I would not endorse them as the best all-around choice in antelope cartridges.
In the 6mm family there are some decent calibers in .243, 6mm, etc. I think these are really the minimum cartridge to consider for antelope for the same reasons as mentioned above.
When you get to the .25 calibers you are starting to talk about really good antelope cartidges. The 25-06 with 117 grain loads comes to mind. With Hornady’s Superformance SST you have 3110 FPS at the muzzle, and almost 1300 lbs of foot energy left at 400 yards. Really, any .25 to .30 caliber rifle in a flat shooting cartidge is perfect for antelope.  I don’t believe the fast 30s are too much if long shots in windy conditions are the norm.

My current antelope rifle is a Cooper Model 52 in standard .270. I shoot Hornady Superformance 130 grain SSTs and sight the rifle in at 3″ high at 100 yards which is a 300 yard zero. I’ve paired it with a Leupold VX3 in 4.5x 14 40mm scope with the ballistic reticle. With that combination I’ve taken two goats at over 450 yards with single shot kills. My  Nosler 48 in 300 WSM  with 150-180 grains would also be perfect on the Montana prairie at 400-500 yards. Almost any centerfire rifle is going to work for antelope as long as you have put in the time behind the trigger and know your limitations and that of your rifle.

Preparing For the Hunt

• Get Maps for the Area: BLM, State Forest, Roads & Recreation Atlas
• Consider a GPS if your going a ways back in
• If you are willing to get away from the roads, consider how you will get the antelope back to the truck. Game cart,  packframe or game sled.
• You will need good optics; Binos and possibly a spotting scope.
• If you have a GPS, buy a land ownership chip
• Practice shooting
• If you dont mind walking, have good boots, lightweight but sturdy
• Invest in a bi-pod or shooting sticks
• Have a plan for your meat. Its often warm.

How to find an antelope

There are places, especially in Wyoming or on some private ranches, where antelope are abundant and a discussion on where to find them would seem rather silly. My antelope hunting experience has been almost entirely on public land in eastern Montana and during the last few years, antelope numbers have been severely impacted by tough winters. Montana once issued over 22,000 antelope tags in unit 700 alone. For 2012 that number was reduced to 200 either sex and 3500 buck only tags. I didn’t get drawn.

In the fall of 2011 I was sitting in a folding chair outside the wall tent trying to get through Ayn Rand’s tome “Atlas Shrugged”. I was five days into a week camped on BLM land in eastern Montana. My friends Marty and Rob Vanausdal had brought me over for opening weekend and left after taking a couple of representative antelope bucks. I was waiting for my brother Dan and his son Conner to arrive the following weekend. After Marty and Rob left, I spent three days covering a lot of country in search of a nice buck. Although I was finding goats in scattered pockets, I wasn’t seeing any outstanding bucks at all. The mature ones were all sporting 12-13″ horns. My friend Dean Waltee, a Fish and Game biologist in Broadus, had told me it would be tough to find a really nice buck that year. The winter had been harsh and eastern MT had been in a drought during the summer. What little energy the surviving goats had after that terrible winter went into muscle growth, not horn. So after looking over around thirty bucks, I ended up taking an unexceptional 13″ animal after an exceptional three hour stalk.

So I was satisfied to take a mature buck and spend the rest of the week helping a rancher down the road set up his sorting pens for fall steers while trying to wade through Atlas Shrugged in the off hours.

The antelope were few and far between so it didn’t suprise me when a truck with three hunters pulled up and inquired about my hunting sucess.  They were from Wisconsin and had spent five days driving around looking for antelope and had not yet fired a shot. They were pretty despondent at this point and willing to throw in with a stranger for some advice. Like most antelope hunters I run into, their method of hunting was to drive until they spotted some antelope from the truck, park and make a stalk. That works when there are a lot of antelope and they aren’t hunted too hard. But the antelope that were lucky enough not to get shot on opening day had a lot of room and were staying a long way from any road.

The hunters were a grandfather, his adult son and a boy in his teens. It was there first antelope hunt and I felt bad for them, especially the boy. “If your willing to get out of your truck and walk a bit, I can help you find a goat or two.” They nodded and listened intently as I suggested a Block Management area a few miles away. It was a “walk in” area and they would have to get out of the truck and put the miles in on foot. I pulled out my BLM map and showed them a small stock pond about a half mile from the parking area. If they were there this evening they would find some antelope nearby. Top every hill slowly I told them, as if there were antelope just over the rise. Sooner or later, there will be. I wished them luck and they drove off towards the BMA. It wasn’t a half hour later when another rig passed, slowed and backed up. A couple of hunters from Billings got out and walked toward my camp. “That must be the only antelope in this county !” one of them exclaimed. “Nah..” I replied, “they’re out there, just not a lot of them this year.” The guy talking seemed skeptical.  “Hell, we’ve been driving around here all week and haven’t seen a single goat”.  When they asked I told them that I had shot my buck almost a mile from the road. He replied that if it came to that then they probably wouldn’t kill an antelope that year. I just smiled and wished them luck.

The next day after setting up pens and helping fix a busted water pipe to a windmill,  I jumped on the four wheeler and rode down the road toward the Wisconsin hunter’s camp. The older man had taken a doe the previous evening. The teen excitedly showed me his small buck he had taken that morning. More importantly, they had seen a good number of antelope and enjoyed the hunt.

I guess the lesson in all of this is that when antelope are scarce, you need to be willing to get out of your vehicle and hike. When pressured, antelope will move away from roads and cluster in the more remote areas if possible. Get up on a high spot at first light and spend a lot of time glassing. Antelope are very territorial and generally will stay within a home range of a square mile or so. Once you find a group of goats, you can usually count on them being somewhere in the area. Move slowly, glass a lot and keep low when you crest a ridge or hilltop. Goats might be bedded or feeding just over the rise. Remember too that goats have noses and can smell you. Just like any other animal, they will beat a fast retreat if they wind you.

Caring for your goat

A few years ago, Dan and I were sitting around the campfire up at a fishing camp on Lake Mary Ronan near Kalispell talking with our friend Claude who once ran a commercial meat packing operation near Gardiner. The conversation turned to antelope and why so many people claim it’s poor tasting game meat. Our experience had been just the opposite. Claude took a swig of beer and said.”Guys, it’s because most antelope die horrible deaths”. That might be a bit dramatic, but Claude had a point. A lot of antelope are poorly shot due to their size and the distance at which hunters take shots. I have also twice witnessed several hunters jumping from trucks and “flock shooting” at a herd of fleeing antelope. Like any game animal, a wounded antelope will build lactic acids in the muscle tissue which will impact flavor and tenderness. It’s also often warm during antelope season and they need to be cooled quickly. That means gutting them immediately and skinning and icing if necessary. Treated properly, antelope meat is excellent table fare.

I did a little surfing on the net and was amazed at the number of posts I found that started something like this: ” I am looking to hunt antelope this fall. I am excited about the trip but have heard they are not good to eat.. ”  etc etc.

Here is a link to an article by the “Wild Chef” talking about his love for antelope. Make a good shot and handle the meat well and you will be in the same camp when it comes to eating antelope!

http://www.fieldandstream.com/blogs/wild-chef/2011/09/why-pronghorn-meat-my-favorite-wild-game