Unit A43 (Cooper Lake)
Wyoming Hunting Guide — Antelope
Antelope Hunt Area 43, which Wyoming Game and Fish names Cooper Lake, covers about 445 square miles in Albany and Carbon counties. It belongs to WGFD's Cooper Lake antelope herd unit. WGFD's 2025 harvest survey put pronghorn success here at 85.9%, with 227 hunters taking 195 pronghorn at about 2.9 days of hunting per animal. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.
Build your own PDF hunt guide for Unit A43
Answer a few questions about your tag, your season and your rig, and the Field Intelligence Report builds a print-ready Wyoming Unit A43 guide around your hunt: three ranked spots with morning, afternoon and evening plays, a day-by-day plan, topo maps with every pin numbered, a camp and access plan, the legal and retrieval rules for this unit, shot discipline, a meat-care and pack-out plan, and a pre-trip checklist. Every coordinate sits on land recorded as public.
Free accounts get one report a year with the top spot unlocked. ProHunt Pro includes unlimited reports, all three spots, the full camp plan, and GPX/KML downloads for onX and Google Earth. Prefer to see one first? Open the builder and pick any unit.
Antelope Hunting in Unit A43
Antelope Hunt Area 43, which Wyoming Game and Fish names Cooper Lake, covers about 445 square miles in Albany and Carbon counties. It belongs to WGFD's Cooper Lake antelope herd unit. WGFD's 2025 harvest survey put pronghorn success here at 85.9%, with 227 hunters taking 195 pronghorn at about 2.9 days of hunting per animal. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.
Where to Find Pronghorn in Antelope Hunt Area 43
The Wyoming Game and Fish Commission names antelope hunt area 43 "Cooper Lake". It runs to about 445 square miles, in Albany (92%) and Carbon (8%) counties. WGFD reports these pronghorn as the Cooper Lake herd unit, and no other hunt area shares it. What WGFD publishes for the area is its boundary and its harvest; where the pronghorn stand inside it is our reading of the ground, and the two are kept apart below.
The line: Rock River and Rock Creek
WGFD's 2026 Chapter 5 walks the line around antelope hunt area 43 corner by corner. It starts at the junction of Wyoming Highway 13 and U.S. Highway 30 north of the town of Rock River. On the way round it follows Wyoming Highway 13, U.S. Highway 30 and Interstate Highway 80, and Rock River and Rock Creek. It is the description your license is good inside, so it is worth reading once in full before you go. The full text is in Section 5 of that chapter, with this year's season dates and license limitations in Section 2.
Ground WGFD opens: Laramie River and Diamond Lake
Its Access Yes program enrolls 2 Hunter Management Areas here that list antelope among their species — Laramie River (40,349 acres) and Diamond Lake (74,301 acres). WGFD's 2026 regulations open Access Yes land only for the species and dates listed for each area, with each area's own rules on WGFD's site and no motorized travel unless WGFD says otherwise. Public Access Areas such as Alsop Lake (3 acres) and Diamond Lake (4 acres) are public ways onto water and land; check what each allows before you count on it for hunting.
High ground inside the line: Bengough Hill, Sevenmile Hill and Signal Hill
Named high points inside antelope hunt area 43 include Bengough Hill at 7,907 feet, Sevenmile Hill at 7,574 feet, Signal Hill at 7,451 feet, Upper Pine Ridge at 7,220 feet and Lower Pine Ridge at 7,155 feet. Several carry a public-land flag in our data, which makes them the first places to try for a view. Pronghorn live in the open and trust their eyes, which is the whole problem.
Holding ground: Big Judson and Big Basin
Below them sit Big Judson at 7,118 feet and Big Basin at 7,009 feet. Those are the basins and bottoms of the area, and they are what you glass into from above.
Reading the land status
Named ground inside antelope hunt area 43 runs from 7,009 feet to 7,907 feet. Those are the heights of the features GNIS names, which bound the range from inside rather than measure it.
Unit A43 terrain and land status
Measured from the unit boundary, not from the agency write-up
Named features inside the unit
Glass from: Lower Pine Ridge (7,155 ft)
Holding ground: Big Judson (7,118 ft), Big Basin (7,009 ft), Diamond Lake Hunter Management Area, Laramie River Hunter Management Area
Every one of these was tested against the unit polygon before it went on the map. They are starting points, not agency recommendations.
How to Hunt Pronghorn in Antelope Hunt Area 43
Antelope Success Rates
Wyoming Game and Fish's 2025 harvest report estimates 85.9% pronghorn success in antelope hunt area 43: 195 animals taken by 227 active hunters over 559 days of hunting, or 2.9 days per animal. By residency, residents 82.4% (145 taken by 176) and nonresidents 98% (50 taken by 51).
These are WGFD's own estimates from its hunter survey, for this hunt area and season only — not a statewide average. One season isn't a trend, so check the current report before you read one into it.
Antelope Draw Odds
| Season | Tags | Applicants | Draw % | Pts (n/p) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rifle — General Type 1 either sex (resident) | 237 | 181 | 100.0% | — |
| Rifle — General Type 1 either sex (nonresident) | 9 | 166 | 5.4% | — |
Data from 2026 draw results. Each row is one residency pool — read the label before the number. This agency publishes no point thresholds, so the Pts column stays blank and these are pool odds, not what a point total draws.
Open in Draw Odds EngineWyoming Game and Fish's 2026 demand report for pronghorn in antelope hunt area 43, residents and nonresidents kept apart because they draw from different license pools:
- Type 1 (any antelope), residents: 181 first-choice applicants for 237 licenses, 100% drawn
- Type 1 (any antelope), nonresidents: 166 first-choice applicants for 9 licenses, 5.4% drawn
Wyoming residents draw pronghorn licenses without preference points; nonresidents draw part of their quota on points, highest balance first (Chapter 44, Section 19), and the nonresident figures above are from WGFD's random draw. WGFD publishes no preference-point level at which a hunt draws, so none is given here. Every figure was checked against WGFD's demand-report PDFs on 2026-08-10.
Unit Logistics & Expectations
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Wyoming antelope hunt area 43?
What is the pronghorn success rate in antelope hunt area 43?
Plan Your Hunt with ProHunt Pro
Unlock advanced tactics, the Tag-to-Trail Planner, AI hunt strategy assistant, and personalized camp and trip execution plans.
Upgrade to Pro — $49/yrSources & Verification
Every fact on this page is tied to a primary source below. Last fact-checked 2026-10-25.
- Chapter 5 — Antelope Hunting Seasons (2026) — Wyoming Game and Fish Commission · supports: Name and legal boundary of antelope hunt area 43, Season dates, license types and limitations by hunt area · accessed 2026-10-25
- Antelope 2025 Harvest Report — Wyoming Game and Fish Department · supports: Hunters, harvest, percent success and days per animal for pronghorn in antelope hunt area 43, The same by license type and residency · accessed 2026-10-25
- WGFD draw results and odds — demand reports 2021-2026 — Wyoming Game and Fish Department · supports: First-choice applicants, licenses and percent drawn, by license type, residency and year · accessed 2026-08-10
- Chapter 44 — Regulation for Issuance of Licenses, Permits, Stamps, Tags, Preference Points and Competitive Raffle Chances — Wyoming Game and Fish Commission · supports: Which licenses are drawn on preference points (Section 19), When preference points are deleted · accessed 2026-10-25
- 2026 Antelope, Deer and Elk Hunting Regulations — Wyoming Game and Fish Commission · supports: Access Yes Walk-In and Hunter Management Area rules · accessed 2026-10-25
- WGFD ArcGIS feature services — hunt areas by species, CWD sampling areas, WHMAs, Public Access Areas, Hunter Management Areas, Walk-In Hunting Areas — Wyoming Game and Fish Department · supports: Mapped outline of the hunt area, Herd unit and square miles, WHMAs, Public Access Areas, Hunter Management Areas and Walk-In Areas inside the area · accessed 2026-10-25
- TIGERweb State_County — Wyoming county boundaries (used only to measure which counties a hunt area lies in) — U.S. Census Bureau · supports: Which counties the hunt area lies in, and in what share · accessed 2026-10-25