10 years

mosquito

Active Member
Nov 1, 2012
305
422
NE ohio
Roughly 10 years ago I had a free trial on my local cable provider for I believe outdoor channel. Thats the first time I saw the eastmans show. I had know idea hunting out west was possible diy. I signed up for the magazine and reading all i could. A year or two later i signed up on this forum and started buying points for Wyoming. Me and my buddy have planned are first antelope hunt several times only to see them canceled due to us both having younger families. We both have 8 pp now for elk and mule deer in Wyoming and bought are first points in Montana this year . Anyway the truck is loaded and were leaving tonight for antelope !! Thank you everyone who has helped and sometimes been very blunt in some of my stupid questions (especially in the beginning). I really appreciate it . 20200929_095532.jpg20200928_132549.jpg
 

Bonecollector

Veteran member
Mar 9, 2014
5,852
3,656
Ohio
Good luck brother!
Can't wait to hear all about it. Enjoy every minute because once its over.... your back in Ohio! :)
I hate those cliche sayings, but it truly applies to western hunting for us midwestern and east coast guys. "Enjoy the journey".
 
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mosquito

Active Member
Nov 1, 2012
305
422
NE ohio
Well we had a great trip . We learned a ton and brought back 4 antelope 2 bucks 2 does. First thing i will say is it was harder than i thought. We hunted from dusk to dawn for 5 days getting my buddies buck before dusk on day 5. The first day or so we saw very few and the ones we saw were in groups less then 3. Everything was very dry20201002_113856.jpg hunting around water is something we don't do in ohio mainly because its everywhere, however after a day or so we new we had to change something so thats what we did . After moving location and finding some water we started seeing more but never saw more than 12 in a group and that was on private. The closest shot was 200 yards and the farthest was 35020201002_144854.jpg
We ran into someone from Wyoming game and fish in the field and he was very helpful. He said the numbers were way down because of how dry it was and if we came back in a few weeks there would probably be a few groups of a couple hundred. He tought us what 2 tracks were and even meet us at a gate and explained what were allowed on and not. ... pretty awesome. We started seeing them pretty often and filled are tags with decent bucks. Saw a ton of mule deer and some elk . Most importantly we made it there and back safely.
Rookie lessons learned
- don't chase antelope, your going to loose (try and cut them off)
- the water thing is the real deal in the west especially if its been dry
-Dont chase antelope
- hills and ridges are alot further than thay look out there.
-Antelope hair sucks .... real bad , never saw anything like it
-Dont drag an antelope 50 yards off a cliff to get to a flat spot to clean it up if you have any intentions of mounting it. It will pull all the hair off. ( i didn't pull it far at all just to a flat spot and it pulled a basketball size spot clean off.... couldn't believe it( as a trapper also ive never saw any fur so fragile)
- they can see really really far ( spooky weird far)
- if you put on a stock of any reasonable distance and there on thier feet feeding don't be surprised if they disappear when you circle around
- hunting units are huge ( at least are area was 50 ish miles long with gravel main rd. )
- dont chase antelope
- if your coming from a state that only allows shotgun hunting or straight walled rifle's shooting rifles is a skill that must also be learned and completely figured out before going. ( was actually ready for this)
-Range finder and binoculars are a must have
- be in shape hills and mountains will kick your butt
- bigger groups were way less skittish ( strength in Numbers?) Smaller groups were gone as soon as they saw us
- don't chase antelope
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We meet some real good people and even exchanged some phone numbers with some Wyoming locals. We showed up and were very honest with are lack of hunting knowledge (western hunting) everyone was very friendly. We had a great trip
 
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