Antelope Season in 102 and 118

[RufusJNP]

Good luck to all the Antelope hunters heading out to hunt next week in 102 and 118. When talking to ranchers and land owners the bit of rain in the last while has relieved a bit of anxiety for all due to the dryness and the potential of fire starts by hunters. I and my hunting partner will be heading down of Saturday for a little preseason scouting and dropping in on ranches and landowners to thank them for giving us permission to hunt. Lets make sure we all get permission to hunt on ranches and grazing leases and respect the landowners conditions for access. REMEMBER it is still dry and be very fire conscious. The last year I hunted antelope was in 2009 ad I am looking forward to a great hunt.

[270person]

Make sure to pass your message on to all of the idiots ripping across the prairies in both wmus. Permission or no permission.

Best way to hunt antelope and mule deer now I guess.

[whitetail Junkie]

Yup it got pretty wet down here the last 2 days

[RufusJNP]

All the ranchers and landowners that I have gotten permission to hunting on their land have been pretty clear that it is foot access only. Also they want me to call the landowner and/or Fish and Wildlife if I see anyone driving off road, not respecting fields that have cattle, etc. Lets hope we are all respectful and abide by the regulations or we will all continue to loose valued access.

[snowman160]

I hunted antelope in the 160’s a few weeks ago an it was the same deal there with some landowners not giving permission due to risk of fires.. then after driving around for a few days of trying to locate a good buck I couldn’t help but notice all the county tractors pulling those giant ditch mowers around and people are worried about hunters possibly hittin a rock with sometimes metal or whatever the case is, how many rocks or sparks are caused by those giant blades hacking up whatever they find in the ditch when it’s bone dry out..found that kinda funny.

[Smokinyotes]

Shouldn’t have to be worried about fires now. Quite a bit of water laying around now.

[tim1]

Water lying around keeps the fire risk down for a day. Already the grass is tinder dry and the fall winds are blowing. The fire risk is real until we get 6 inches of snow and temperatures stay below freezing. Everything please use common sense or access will be denied.

[ram crazy]

Originally Posted by RufusJNP

Good luck to all the Antelope hunters heading out to hunt next week in 102 and 118. When talking to ranchers and land owners the bit of rain in the last while has relieved a bit of anxiety for all due to the dryness and the potential of fire starts by hunters. I and my hunting partner will be heading down of Saturday for a little preseason scouting and dropping in on ranches and landowners to thank them for giving us permission to hunt. Lets make sure we all get permission to hunt on ranches and grazing leases and respect the landowners conditions for access. REMEMBER it is still dry and be very fire conscious. The last year I hunted antelope was in 2009 ad I am looking forward to a great hunt.

How’d you make out with the Antelope tag?

[AB2506]

Originally Posted by 270person

Make sure to pass your message on to all of the idiots ripping across the prairies in both wmus. Permission or no permission.

Best way to hunt antelope and mule deer now I guess.

Have you actually hunted in 102 in the last 35 years? There is no ripping across the prairies.

[ram crazy]

My guess is a lot of tags didn’t get filled as the number of Antelope were way down. Really cold and lots of snow last winter didn’t do any favours for the animals.

[Pathfinder76]

Originally Posted by ram crazy

My guess is a lot of tags didn’t get filled as the number of Antelope were way down. Really cold and lots of snow last winter didn’t do any favours for the animals.

Not the reports I’m hearing.

[RufusJNP]

Had a great antelope hunt in 102,118.
We did not see as many antelope as in 2009 (the last time we hunted) and I feel we observed less than half the antelope that we saw in 2009. We knew this before the hunt started as local ranchers told us antelope numbers were down.

We did not see any large group, most groups were 6 to 10 animals with very few young of year ( kids or fawns). This may have an impact on populations over the next couple of years. Saw an abundance of coyotes and this may well be the reason for the lack of fawns.

We did see quite a few 10 to 12 inch bucks which are most likely 1.5 or 2.5 years old. Saw lots of single bucks and groups of 2 to 3 bucks with no does.

Mature bucks with good horn length and mass were few and far between. I did not shoot a buck as I had shot a nice heavy 14.5 inch buck in 2009 and did not see one that came even close on this hunt. My hunting partner shot a 13 inch buck as his family and friends wanted to try the meat.

There were a lot of hunters around all week so I do not think there was a big harvest on opening day like past years. I talked to a few hunters on Wednesday that were still looking for a buck, were not seeing a lot and most antelope were well away from roads by that time.

We saw lots of mule deer ( 2 big trophy class bucks on Bare creek), pheasants, sharp tail grouse, badgers, coyotes and cows. Had a great hunt, burnt a bit of boot leather and enjoyed the short grass prairie.

Thanks to the land owners and ranchers for the permission to hunt.

[ram crazy]

Down at the ranch we had 300 head of Antelope last December and after the hard winter we had down here the Antelope numbers this spring in that same group was about 40 head. We spent 2 months looking in both those zones and decided to hold off drawing tags. On a plus side we helped a lot of friends with their gopher problems.