Can a hunter in Wyoming draw a pronghorn licence over the counter or use a general licence for this hunt area?

No. Every pronghorn hunt area in Wyoming is limited quota, drawn for that specific area. No general pronghorn licence is sold over the counter in Wyoming, and no regional licence covers pronghorn. Residents and nonresidents alike enter the draw for hunt area 18 specifically; if a hunter does not draw, there is no alternative licence to buy.

Does a Wyoming resident hunting pronghorn here need preference points?

No. Wyoming residents have no pronghorn preference points and do not build or use points for any pronghorn draw. The resident pronghorn draw is random. Nonresidents, by contrast, compete in a draw where three quarters of the licences are awarded by preference points, top-down, and a quarter are issued randomly.

Can a hunter rely on public access across this hunt area?

About 37% of hunt area 18 is public ground — Bureau of Land Management, National Forest and State Trust Land — with the Thunder Basin National Grasslands offering significant opportunity. Public access is not guaranteed everywhere: roads, trailheads, seasonal closures and private inholdings all still limit where a hunter can go. The walk-in area in Campbell County provides foot access during its open season.

What is the difference between the three seasons offered here?

All three hunts run August 15 through October 20, with an archery window from August 15 through September 30 and a regular season from October 1 through October 20. Type 1 allows any pronghorn; Type 6 and Type 7 permit doe or fawn only. Type 7 is valid on private land only, while Type 1 and Type 6 are valid across the entire hunt area.

How does weather change across the archery and regular seasons here?

August highs average 86 degrees Fahrenheit with lows near 54 degrees, with virtually no snow. By September, highs cool to around 75 degrees and lows drop to the mid-40s, still snowless. October brings a sharper drop to highs near 59 degrees and lows in the low 30s, with about 0.7 inches of snow falling across the month.

Wyoming Hunt Area 18 (Rockypoint) pronghorn hunting

Licence

Limited quota — drawn

Open public land

37%

Elevation

3,300–4,800 ft

Terrain

Gentle

Hunt area 18 spans 542 square miles across a mix of open grassland and sagebrush country broken by rolling hills and stands of ponderosa pine. Elevation ranges from 3,300 to 4,800 feet, with typical ground around 3,900 feet. The terrain averages 4.9 degrees of slope — about 90% of it is gentle ground. Grass and meadow make up half the vegetation here, with sagebrush covering 41%, conifer about 3%, and other cover the remainder. Much of the area that slopes more steeply or carries heavy forest does not hold pronghorn; the open sagebrush and grassland is where the animals concentrate. Public land makes up 37% of the hunt area, chiefly Bureau of Land Management parcels, National Forest and State Trust tracts, and notably the Thunder Basin National Grasslands. The remaining 63% is private ground. Access across public land is not automatic — roads, trailheads and seasonal closures still apply, and private inholdings can break up public tracts. A walk-in area in Campbell County offers foot access without a permission slip during its open period.

The seasons here differ partly in their legal animals and partly in where a hunter can pursue them. The primary difference between the three drawn hunts is that two allow doe or fawn only, with one of those restricted to private land, while the first licence permits any pronghorn. All three run the same calendar. The archery window spans from mid-August through September — a long season catching the earliest part of the rut — and regular season runs through the third week of October as the rut winds down and pronghorn begin to gather into larger groups for winter.

Licence and how this hunt area is drawn

Hunt Area 18 (Rockypoint) is limited quota. A licence for it must be drawn for this hunt area specifically, by resident and nonresident alike. Wyoming issues no general pronghorn licence and no region pronghorn licence, so there is no over-the-counter option and no regional fallback: every pronghorn hunt area in the state is drawn on its own.

Wyoming residents have no preference points for pronghorn — the resident pronghorn draw is random, and no resident point cutoff exists for any hunt area in the state. For nonresidents points matter a great deal: Wyoming awards 75% of each nonresident pool through the preference-point draw, top-down by points, and the remaining 25% at random. Nonresidents also choose between the Regular and Special pools — the same hunts at two price points, competing separately.

Seasons (2026)

Type 1 · Any antelope
Archery August 15 – September 30Regular October 1 – October 20
Type 6 · Doe or fawn
Archery August 15 – September 30Regular October 1 – October 20
Type 7 · Doe or fawn valid on private land
Archery August 15 – September 30Regular October 1 – October 20

The wording of each hunt is the Wyoming Game & Fish Department’s and is legally exact — a “cow or calf” hunt is not a pronghorn hunt in general, and a hunt limited to part of the area is not valid across it. Confirm every hunt in the current regulations before applying.

Hunting each season

Type 1 — Any antelope (August–October)

Archery season for any pronghorn opens in mid-August as bucks begin moving to establish and defend territory, and runs through September as the primary rut builds and peaks, finally tracking into early October as animals begin their post-rut recovery and shift toward fall groupings. August days are warm, with highs near 86 degrees and virtually no snow, while September cools to highs around 75 degrees. The combination of long archery season and a live rut makes this a mobile hunt; pronghorn will be moving and visible, though warm early months can mean long glassing days and wide-area foot stalking. Public land available on Bureau of Land Management and National Forest ground, as well as the Thunder Basin National Grasslands, provides the primary avenue for access.

Type 6 — Doe or fawn (August–October)

The doe or fawn season spans the same August-through-October period as any-pronghorn archery and regular seasons, opening in mid-August through territory-formation and primary rut phases and closing in late October as animals group for winter. Archery months are warm — August around 86 degrees, September cooling to the mid-70s — while October grows sharply colder, with highs dropping to the upper 50s and early-month snowfall beginning. This licence permits doe and fawn only across the entire hunt area, valid on both public and private ground, and the restriction to females and young animals does not limit access itself but does shape the hunt, as does the presence of drawn bucks on the same ground.

Type 7 — Doe or fawn valid on private land (August–October)

A doe or fawn licence valid on private land only allows the same legal animals as the area-wide doe-or-fawn hunt but requires a hunter to stay on private ground throughout the archery season and the October rifle-and-shotgun portion. The season opens mid-August through the pre-rut and primary-rut phases and runs into late October as the rut cools and pronghorn begin to gather for winter. August brings warm highs near 86 degrees with no snow, September moderates to the mid-70s, and October cools into the upper 50s with intermittent snow. A hunter holding this licence must have private-land access arranged in advance, as it confers no right to public ground.

Land and access

private land63%

Private

BLM17%

Generally open to public hunting

National Forest13%

Generally open to public hunting

State Trust Land7%

Generally open to public hunting

About 37% of this hunt area is ground a hunter can generally count on — BLM, National Forest and State Trust Land, roughly 202 square miles. Public ownership is not the same as easy entry: roads, trailheads, seasonal closures and private inholdings all still apply.

State trust land counts toward the open figure above. Wyoming extends hunting on legally accessiblestate trust land to the public unless a parcel is specifically closed — the catch is the access itself, since crossing private ground to reach it still needs the landowner’s permission. Camping, fires and off-road vehicles are not allowed on it.

This hunt area has 1 enrolled walk-in area. That is private ground enrolled for public access, not public land. A Walk-In Area needs no permission slip — a hunter may walk in during the open period, subject to its posted rules. Enrollment is renegotiated every year, so check current status before counting on either.

Where pronghorn are mapped

Yearlong Range84%

the only layer that means year-round use

Winter Range15%

used in winter

Each figure is the share of the hunt area that layer covers. It says where pronghorn are mapped, not where inside the area they are, and not when they move.

Habitat and cover

Across the unit

Grass and meadow50%

Sagebrush41%

Other cover6%

Conifer3%

Shares are of each elevation band, not of the whole hunt area — they describe what grows up there, not how much of the area sits at that elevation.

Weather through the season

Month	Avg high	Avg low	Snowfall
January	35°F	12°F	3.8 in
February	38°F	14°F	3.9 in
March	49°F	23°F	2.4 in
April	57°F	30°F	1.6 in
May	66°F	40°F	0 in
June	77°F	49°F	0 in
July	87°F	56°F	0 in
August	86°F	54°F	0 in
September	75°F	45°F	0 in
October	59°F	33°F	0.7 in
November	46°F	22°F	1.8 in
December	36°F	13°F	3.8 in

Snowfall is the monthly total, not depth lying on the ground.

Common questions

Can a hunter in Wyoming draw a pronghorn licence over the counter or use a general licence for this hunt area?: No. Every pronghorn hunt area in Wyoming is limited quota, drawn for that specific area. No general pronghorn licence is sold over the counter in Wyoming, and no regional licence covers pronghorn. Residents and nonresidents alike enter the draw for hunt area 18 specifically; if a hunter does not draw, there is no alternative licence to buy.
Does a Wyoming resident hunting pronghorn here need preference points?: No. Wyoming residents have no pronghorn preference points and do not build or use points for any pronghorn draw. The resident pronghorn draw is random. Nonresidents, by contrast, compete in a draw where three quarters of the licences are awarded by preference points, top-down, and a quarter are issued randomly.
Can a hunter rely on public access across this hunt area?: About 37% of hunt area 18 is public ground — Bureau of Land Management, National Forest and State Trust Land — with the Thunder Basin National Grasslands offering significant opportunity. Public access is not guaranteed everywhere: roads, trailheads, seasonal closures and private inholdings all still limit where a hunter can go. The walk-in area in Campbell County provides foot access during its open season.
What is the difference between the three seasons offered here?: All three hunts run August 15 through October 20, with an archery window from August 15 through September 30 and a regular season from October 1 through October 20. Type 1 allows any pronghorn; Type 6 and Type 7 permit doe or fawn only. Type 7 is valid on private land only, while Type 1 and Type 6 are valid across the entire hunt area.
How does weather change across the archery and regular seasons here?: August highs average 86 degrees Fahrenheit with lows near 54 degrees, with virtually no snow. By September, highs cool to around 75 degrees and lows drop to the mid-40s, still snowless. October brings a sharper drop to highs near 59 degrees and lows in the low 30s, with about 0.7 inches of snow falling across the month.

Sources

Wyoming Game & Fish — Hunting & Trapping — licence types, general and limited-quota hunts, and season structure
WGFD Hunt Planner — hunt-area boundaries, season dates and the unit descriptions
WGFD — Draw results and odds — how the resident random draw and the nonresident preference-point draw work
WGFD — Regulations — the legal limitations on each hunt, and the statewide licence rules
USGS National Land Cover Database (NLCD 2021) and 3DEP elevation — land cover and terrain by elevation band

Seasons, licence types and boundaries change. Confirm every detail with the Wyoming Game & Fish Department before applying or hunting.

All Wyoming pronghorn hunt areas