My advice after 13 buck antelope hunts. While not many hunts but here's what I learned to have a REAL ANTELOPE HUNT and not an expensive antelope SHOOT.
1. Learn everything you can on field judging them before your hunt, especially true for first timers. If your hunting the opener get there a few days early to get confident in field judging them
2. Allow at least 5 full days to hunt them not including travel time to the hunt area.
3. Pass up the first week or two or hunt in early Oct. Way less hunters to screw up your stalks and less pressure. I killed my best buck and saw one larger in an area that was opened 3 weeks earlier
4. Have decent optics so you don't make a dozen stalks a day on sub par bucks and burn up precious time. Take the time to walk up to high ground along the road to get a view of land you can't see from it.
5. Be willing to pass on lots of bucks if your goal in a 78 inch or better buck. You need to look at a lot of them to find a good one. While some will say a 78 inch buck isn't that big, I bet most peoples bucks are in the low 70's and smaller. I use 78 inches as my break point for what I call a good buck. If I hunt hard and don't kill an 80 inch buck I'm more than happy with one of that size. Remember it will take 3-5 years of points to draw a good tag in WY. Do you want to shoot a dinker and wait that long to hunt another.
6. Be patient but don't be afraid to move to a new area if you don't see a buck you want to kill. I had a friend at work that hunted some hunter management land in WY. He kept seeing the same size bucks and thought that was the biggest the area had to hold, so he shot one of the look alike bucks. He then moved on to BLM land to fill his doe tags and immediately started seeing bigger bucks, Dah?
7. Look at a lot of bucks before you pull the trigger. This may be hard for some WA hunters to do as we have such few opportunities to pass on game here. Believe me, if your hunting a good antelope area for 5 days you will be able to kill at least 4 or more bucks a day every day so no worries killing a small one on the last 1/2 day if you feel the need to.
8. Make it a hunt and not a shoot. Its a lot more fun looking at a lot of antelope bucks and killing a good one as apposed to killing the first buck you see from the road. You never learn how to hunt them that way and its a long way back home beating yourself up figuring out why you did that. Been there did that.
9. If you want to get your feet wet hunting antelope buy 2-4 doe tags which are cheaper than one buck tag in WY and hunt them. They have the same sharp eyesight and are every bit as hard to stalk.
Are all the bucks that I shot in the past over 78 inches, Hell NO, but I wish I had the goals I have now for them
