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This year marks my wife's first hunt. Born and raised mountain girl with am attitude to back it up, but never been on her own hunt before. I want to show her an amazing time out in the sticks. She loves camping and hiking and is super excited. She drew a great 24a WT tag, and my best friend and I will be "guiding" her hunt. We love the area and have seen some great deer there before. The main point of this post is to share my excitement. But, I'm not gonna lie, I'm a little worried about pushing her too hard, or taking some little(to me) things for granted. Any tips and advice from you guys for showing the wife a great time on her first hunt? I don't need anyone to share their secret spots or anything, we have a pretty good plan for where we will be hunting and have a few more scouting trips as long as the cards fall in line. But of you know any huge bicks out there that have been bothering you and need them dispatched id be happy to do that for you too.

Wow.

Awesome deer and great story.

I had my lope done at Wellers . They do awesome body mounts as well and have seen some really cool action set ups. They have that huge javalina display above the door in sportsmans. A little pricey though but it was worth it to me.

She has been climbing the stairmaster like a mad woman at the gym for the last long in preparation. great advice everyone, appreciate all the help. I'll be sure to let her set the pace, keep her warm and dry and get her very comfortable with the rifle and the shot.

Not sure about the top, have only hiked up there a few times but the middle areas of the mountain, around 7-14mile post have some amazing hiking trails for quickly getting back away from the road. I'm pretty sure you would have a great time hiking back from there and finding something.

Saw this earlier, how sad. Hopefully the cause of death is determined to truly be from the bug bites, rather than something else more sinister.

I've used the HD and can vouch for its awesomeness. Very clear glass. My friend tested both HD and non HD versions before buying and he seemed convinced that the extra money was worth it.

Goodluck sir. Long time reader part time contributer here, but I've always enjoyed reading what you and bill have to say and look forward to hearing more stories in the future... so.. get better.

Got my left over tag but not the wifes tag from the regular draw yet. Weird.

Send Me a pm. I live in the northern part of thr unit and have hunted that hunt the last few years, tryin a new spot this year so don't mind sharing info I have. Goodluck.

Silly question maybe, but does this bike have efi, or is it carb?

I can recomend myricks cabins, stayed there last august after a friends recommendation and really enjoyed it there. Clean cabins, nice grounds, and tons of grasshoppers in the field to catch for trout bait.

Sorry for the delay on the story, I know when i asked for advise people were more than happy to help and sometimes expect a story in return so that people arent just coming here and stealing info and not contributing. Anyway, life got busy and.... here it is Well I was one of the fortunate few who drew an antelope tag in 9 this year. Actually the first time I have ever put in for antelope, so i guess everyone can hate me for that I am also fortunate enough to have friends who were able to help me out with this hunt. I was able to go up in july with my friends matt and brian for a 3 day scouting man trip as the wife called it. I felt like i got a pretty good lay of the land back then, and was excited to come back for the hunt after seeing antelope everywhere i looked. Last Tuesday rolled around and brian and I were heading back on up for a few days of scouting before the hunt and to hopefully locate the buck we followed last time. Brian and I both had to burn 72 hours(3 shifts) of vacation from the fire department to cover the whole hunt, so we were really hoping for an early harvest to save some of those hours for deer/elk hunts later in the year. The trip up was ominous with some of the hardest rains i have ever experienced. Pretty much the every part of the eastern side of unit 9 was flooded and i proceeded to the western side, which was fine with me. Settled into camp and make some beer can chicken in the dutch oven after doing a little road scouting. Spent Wednesday driving the roads again to make sure the same antelope were still in the same area, which they were. We found "the king" as we called him, on the same hill we had seen him on a few months prior. Thursday we woke up at 430 to get in the place we wanted to hunt opening morning. After 30 minutes of no luck at this point we started walking across the field when the strangest thing happened. We saw a small buck come out of the trees a few hundred yards across for us, in a gallop strait towards us. He kept coming, and coming... until he was within 10 yards. We watched him for a few minutes in astonishment, and figured this buck was young enough that he wouldn't have to worry about his dumb behavior getting him shot, this year at least. So we took off, and so did the buck, following us about 15 yards away for a few minutes. I decided i would walk back to try and pet him, since he didnt seem spoked at all. I got within 5 yards or so and bent over to pick up some sage to feed him when he spooked away and backed off a bit. he still followed us for another 30 minutes, and it was one of the strangest experiences ive had in nature yet. We kept hiking until we found a nice overlook where we had seen the stink goats the day before, and watched a nice buck and his does taking a nap for 30 minutes before we sneaked out, hoping to come find him tomorrow. But in the back of my mind i still wanted to find the king again. We wanted to keep our energy for friday and since we just hiked 10 miles or so we took it easy the rest of the day and played some chess back at camp and had steak dinner. Gotta love those big rib eyes. Friday. Opening morning! Slept like a kid the night before christmas and was hoping the lack of sleep wouldnt come back to haunt me. We drove the truck to a "good"(this is in parenthesis because good is a relative term) center point of where we thought we would be. Then we put some boot tread to the ground and hiked out to the overlook to find the sure thing buck. Well, he wasnt there, in fact all we could find for about 2 hours were a few does. Then the gun shots started. We had seen road hunters while we were glassing all morning, and apparently they were shooting at something, heard 4 shots together so we figured the buck must have escaped. 30 minutes past and one shot, then nothing, we figured one buck down. Then another down 30 minutes later. Well, long story short, brian kept wanting to glass the area we had spent the most time scouting. I wanted to find the king. We comprimised and walked the ridge near the plateau the king lived on. Around 10 we started back to the truck to hit the other side of the hill and BAM, out of nowhere we spooked a buck up 200 yards out in the field. Brian ranged him and i glassed him, he was big, in fact he was our king. I was so excited, too excited in fact to get my shot off, i didnt feel comfortable taking the shot, which i regretted 10 minutes later. Long story short we spent the next 90 minutes trailing him for about 4-5 miles. he never let us closer than 500 yards or so. The grass was much too long to shoot prone unless i could find a nice patch on top of a hill, but that didnt seem likely. We were starting to get a little discouraged because we knew we were pushing the king towards a road, and the last thing i wanted was to give him as a gift to one of those road hunters. Well we crossed the road with no issue, saw the king on the next ridge probalby 700 yards out when he went over. He thought he had lost us at this point, we hadnt seen him for 10 minutes. When he went over we took off at an angle because we knew he was probalby heading to one of the water holes we saw the day before that he was getting very near at this point. Exactly where we thought we would cross the hill and look down on him he popped up 208 yards away from us and was eating. Once again, i could not go prone, and my proudest moment in my recent memory was this shot, at 208 yards free standing, after hiking probably another 10 miles. I put him down with one shot, which i was very happy about, Antelope, and all animals for that matter deserve a one shot death, in my opinion, and if i dont feel like i can put him down with one shot, i dont think i will end up taking that shot. Anyway. About that "good" central parking spot we found? It was about 4-5 miles away. Took some pictures and while gutting the antelope another big buck came up to us to check it out, I jokingly said to brian that the king has fallen and a new antelope is taking over this hill. After gutting the stink goat, I took the king with me, and brian took off ahead to the truck, we planned to meet... somewhere in the middle. A nice old hunter gave brian a ride and brian got back to me probably 30-40 minutes later. The old man said he last hunted antelope at 22 and was now in his late 50's and still hasnt gotten drawn again, he was just out guiding a family member. Sorry to ramble on. No joke, those antelopes hair is really a nightmare, I couldnt believe how much of it was lost in retrieval. Saved enough and brought the head and cape to Wellers Wildlife and dropped the meat off. I feel so fortunate to have gotten drawn for such a rare hunt, and even more fortunate to have gotten my goat on opening morning, especially it being the one i had wanted for the last few months. I wanted to thank everyone here who gave me advise, and hope to come back and share more stories someday. Good luck hunting everyone!!!

Dont mean to bump up a old topic, but came across it yesterday. A few friends and myself decided we want to go bag a few antelope up in wyoming, mainly for the meat. Not looking for trophy bucks, but at least a small buck and a couple doe each would be our goal. That being said, i realize it is way too late to buy bonus points for 2013. I think i am starting to understand the process, but could use some guidance. Without bonus points are there any units with high enough draw odds, that have enough public land, or the free hunter management land that would even be worth putting in for? Ive scoured the list with the odds, and googled units that have a large amount of public land, and seems most of the common ones require a few points to get drawn. So i turn to you guys, what are some other units worth putting in for that wont require high $ rancher or guide fees?

I bought a map for unit 9 for my antelope hunt earlier this year. Since i had never been to the unit it provided an incredibly helpful starting point. I probably would have been successful without buying their map, but that was only because there was antelope everywhere. The scouting points they had marked did provide good starting points. As far as customer service, the map must have been lost in the mail originally, but after one email they quickly sent the map again no questions asked. I will buy from them again when i get drawn for an unfamiliar unit.

Hi everybody. My name is mike and I've been reading here for awhile and finally decided to sign up and join you all, I'm very excited to continue to read your awesome stories and advice and hopefully add my own. I live down in Tucson and am a somewhat new hunter only having gone out since last year for a few hunts. I got quite lucky this year and drew a pronghorn tag in unit 9, and was successful, and have upcoming and deer tags in the Tucson area for the wife and myself so looking forward to a busy fall. Anyway I have tons of questions that I will eventually ask and hope I can help share my limited knowledge as well, but I just wanted to start by saying thank you for all the advice I've already read and allowing me to join . I thank you all in advance for the unlimited advice i read to allow me to be successful on my antelope hunt last week. i really did pick up quite a bit of knowledge here.

Ahh, I'd love to but that is the same time as my wife's deer hunt. I guess i am spoken for that weekend.