Al Langston from the Wyoming Game and Fish Department fields a lot of the questions hunters and anglers ask. Over the years, he’s had to answer many of the same questions time after time. In order to address many of the most common archery-related questions he gets every year, Al sent out a list of those questions and their answers recently.
The most common question has to do with the archery permit. You only need an archery permit if you plan to hunt in one of the early archery-only seasons. If you have a Type-9 hunting license for deer, elk or antelope, you don’t need an extra archery permit, at least for the species you have the Type-9 license for.
However, even if you have, say, a Type-9 deer license, you’ll need an archery permit if you want to hunt antelope during the archery season, if your antelope license isn’t a Type-9. But if you want to hunt antelope, deer and elk, all with, say, Type-1 licenses, you only need one archery permit. You don’t need one for each species.
Keep in mind the archery permit does not allow you an extra animal. It only lets you hunt in the archery-only season. If you don’t get an animal with your bow, you can go back and hunt during the firearm season, as long as the license you have isn’t a Type-9, archery-only license.
One of the other popular questions has to do with draw weights. To hunt antelope, deer, mountain lions and black bear, the bow has to have at least a 40-pound draw weight. To hunt elk or moose, it has to be at least 50 pounds. A crossbow has to be at least 90 pounds.
Check the regulations for any other questions you might have about archery hunting. And good luck this season.
