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Do you still have a hunt.

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Do you still have a hunt.

Postby Lefty » 08 28, 2023 •  [Post 1]

We've had a lot of winter kill. Four units around our antelope unit closed their antelope hunts. Our antelope hunt may notas stellar as planned.
Driving back from my spring snow goose hunt there were hundreds of dead deer and antelope.
I spoke with the rancher who has the Forest Service lease by us,, he reported dead antelope on his desert cattle range
Anyyone else effected closures?

Some of you are aware of Wyoming's' early closures.





Nicole Pollack
Wyoming officials this week made adjustments to a half-dozen of this year’s hunting seasons — but chiefly antelope and deer — in an effort to prevent excessive wildlife mortality after an unusually deadly winter.
The Wyoming Game and Fish Commission accepted virtually all of the changes state wildlife managers recommended for the already-limited hunt areas, season dates and restrictions first outlined last month, including a number of additional reductions.In total, it will offer 30,855 antelope licenses and 5,685 limited-quota deer licenses, a considerable drop from the 41,145 antelope tags and 10,095 limited-quota deer tags issued last year. (General deer licenses will also be available.)
The doe harvest, in particular, will be curtailed significantly for antelope and deer this year, said Breanna Ball, public information officer for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department.
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Re: Do you still have a hunt.

Postby wawhitey » 08 28, 2023 •  [Post 2]

Ive heard about all the winter kill out that way, terrible thing. Didnt notice much winter kill here, but our herds are in such bad shape, even a 25% die off wouldnt be dramatic enough to be noticeable. If deer, pronghorn, whatever are hit hard in somebodys area, id say leave them alone for a couple years and focus on predator hunting. Thats my plan. Just dropped in on a local cattle guy that has a big chunk of land bordering the public near by, loaded with cougars, got written permission to hunt his place too. Theyve told me i can hunt their land all i want, but the written permission is incase a game warden questions me coming out of their property. Never even needed to worry about that in the past, but now with them cooperating with the game department about wolf issues, they have written permission only signs up, signs from wdfw . So gotta carry the slip now to stay out of trouble. Benefit of predator hunting, a guy can get access to a lot of great private land to hunt predators, where hed otherwise be told to pound sand if asking to hunt antlered critters. Ive contacted several total strangers over the years who were willing to give me access for predators. Usualy some variation of "just dont let me catch you hunting deer / elk here"

So yeah, if deer etc are down, hunt lions and wolves and whatnot for a couple years instead. May even get access to some good private in the proccess
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Re: Do you still have a hunt.

Postby Lefty » 08 28, 2023 •  [Post 3]

There are some real hardcore coyote hunters, And we do have a government trapper that's very good t his job where we elk hunt. In the past when its archery season only hunt archery . I use to be the same way trapping,,,chase one animal and leave everything else alone,,,even coyotes seemed to get some passes,,, and some didnt 8-)

Out units cats fill quickly.. But the talk is about no quota in residential (rural ) areas
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Re: Do you still have a hunt.

Postby Old school » 08 30, 2023 •  [Post 4]

My son and I head to Wyoming to hunt antelope in 2 weeks. The unit he drew didn’t cut tags at all - will find out when we get there if this was a good decision to hunt this year or not.
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