Unfortunately I don't know much about the free range hunt. I did the WSMR hunt as a guest with a buddy a couple of years ago, and it was a blast! My buddy (even though he's now killed more species of game animals than me) is still fairly new to hunting, so I acted as guide. I'd never done a stalk before, but consider myself a capable woodsman, and he tended to defer to my direction.
We didn't see anything the first afternoon. The next morning, they were everywhere. We hadn't made it a couple of miles from the start, and saw some off one of the main roads. I got out and stood on the truck and started glassing. As I was looking at them, I saw some movement, and was able to shift just quick enough to see my first ever mountain lion moving through the brush. It was just a glimpse, but there's nothing else it could have been. We determined the group didn't have the trophy he was after, and moved on. About an hour later we pull up to a truck with a couple of guys and shoot the **** for a couple of minutes. They said they'd seen some in the direction we were headed, but they were too far out and the guys were too old to get to them. We headed that way and found them a bit later. They were about a mile and a half off the road, at the base of some mountains/cliffs. I couldn't see horns, but could definitely tell that some of them had much bigger bodies than the rest, and we decided to make a play on them. We used a map to look at contour lines to figure out our route, and ended up heading up a shallow washout that got deeper as we got closer. Side note, my buddy noted that when he took his rifle out of his truck, one of the adjustment covers on his scope had come off (this plays out later). They spotted us about 800 yards out, and we started a cat and mouse game. They'd pull their heads up, and we'd drop down and wait for them to go back to eating, then get up and creep towards them. It took us an hour to make the 400 yards needed to get out of their sight, but we managed to do so without scaring them off. Once the washout got deep enough that we were out of sight, we needed about 100 yards to make it to a rise that should have put us about 300 yards away (guessing). It was a sandy bottom, and we could move freely without noise. We made it about 50 yards, and my heart sank, and we dropped down. A pronghorn had stepped up to the rise we were headed for and was staring straight at us. He stood there for a few seconds, before turning and running away. My buddy's first instinct was to boogie up the rise before everything ran away. I told him to hold tight, figuring that if they were running, we weren't shooting one anyway, and that if we just let everything settle down, maybe we'd have a chance. We waited a few minutes, and then crested the rise, and where there were 50 Oryx 15 minutes before, there was nothing. We scouted a few gullies in the immediate area, before finding some moving away from us. The wind was in our favor, but we had to make it through some brush before we could set up a shot. We moved quickly, and my buddy set up and pulled the trigger and missed (we found out later his scope was off). After he shot, those beasts took off, and I watched them run for several minutes at full speed. They showed no inkling of stopping, and ran until they were out of sight. Though it was a failed stalk, I still felt it was successful. If it hadn't been for that one antelope cresting the rise when he did, I feel like we would have come out in range, and had our pick. We moseyed our way back to the truck and headed on.
Throughout the morning, we'd see some, but were unable to put a stalk on them. Eventually, we came to a knob, and decided to get out and do some glassing. Miraculously, there was a big bull below us. We worked out a plan for him to work his way down the knob, and around to another washout, which should open up right where this bull was headed. I stayed up top, and he worked his way down, glancing up at me for direction every few minutes. Sure enough, he made it to the mouth of the washout just as the bull was coming out of the brush, but he couldn't see it. He watched me for direction until it came within view, about 100 yards away. He set up again, and missed again. We spent an hour searching for a spot of blood, but there was none. We didn't have a good opportunity for another the rest of the day.
The next morning, I had to leave as I had things I had to take care of at home. He headed to some BLM land to see what was up with his gun. He ended up calling me, telling me that it was 6 inches off at 100 yards. He headed out for his last morning hunt. Just before he got where he wanted to go, a game warden flagged him down and asked him what kind of hunt he had (he had once in a lifetime). The warden told him he'd seen some nice ones, and asked if he wanted him to take him to them. My buddy agreed, and followed the game warden. Once they pulled off the road, my buddy had to close about 400 yards for a shot. The game warden stayed with him the whole time. This time, my buddy didn't miss. He shot an AMAZING bull, and said the warden was just as excited as he was! The warden then helped him pack the meat out on his ATV after my buddy skinned it.
As I said, I'd never been on a western hunt where you had to stalk an animal, but I had a blast! I wish I could have been there for the kill, but my portion was successful in my mind. The only thing that could have gone better was if that antelope didn't crest the rise right when he did, but that can't be helped.
(TLDR, Buddy and I had a blast on WSMR)
ETA, I know my story doesn't have to do with free range, but hopefully OP can gleam some information from it.
